RethinkDB - Updating nested array

Question

I have a survey table that looks like so:

{
  id: Id,
  date: Date,
  clients: [{
    client_id: Id,
    contacts: [{
      contact_id: Id,
      score: Number,
         


        

Answer 1

tfmontague is on the right path but I think his answer can be improved a lot. Because he uses ...(0) there's a possibility for his answer to throw errors.

zabusa also provides a ReQL solution using map and branch but doesn't show the complete nested update. I will expand on this technique.

ReQL expressions are composable so we can isolate complexity and avoid repetition. This keeps the code flat and clean.

First write a simple function mapIf

const mapIf = (rexpr, test, f) =>
  rexpr.map(x => r.branch(test(x), f(x), x));

Now we can write the simplified updateClientContact function

const updateClientContact = (doc, clientId, contactId, patch) =>
  doc.merge
  ( { clients:
        mapIf
        ( doc('clients')
        , c => c('client_id').eq(clientId)
        , c =>
            mapIf
            ( c('contacts')
            , c => c('contact_id').eq(contactId)
            , c =>
                c.merge(patch)
            )
        )
    }
  );

Use it like this

// fetch the document to update
const someDoc =
  r.db(...).table(...).get(...);

// create patch for client id [1] and contact id [12]
const patch =
  updateClientContact(someDoc, 1, 12, { name: 'x', feedback: 'z' });

// apply the patch
someDoc.update(patch);

Here's a concrete example you can run in reql> ...

const testDoc =
  { clients:
      [ { client_id: 1
        , contacts:
            [ { contact_id: 11, name: 'a' }
            , { contact_id: 12, name: 'b' }
            , { contact_id: 13, name: 'c' }
            ]
        }
      , { client_id: 2
        , contacts:
            [ { contact_id: 21, name: 'd' }
            , { contact_id: 22, name: 'e' }
            , { contact_id: 23, name: 'f' }
            ]
        }
      , { client_id: 3
        , contacts:
            [ { contact_id: 31, name: 'g' }
            , { contact_id: 32, name: 'h' }
            , { contact_id: 33, name: 'i' }
            ]
        }
      ]
  };

updateClientContact(r.expr(testDoc), 2, 23, { name: 'x', feedback: 'z' });

The result will be

{ clients:
    [ { client_id: 1
      , contacts:
          [ { contact_id: 11, name: 'a' }
          , { contact_id: 12, name: 'b' }
          , { contact_id: 13, name: 'c' }
          ]
      }
    , { client_id: 2
      , contacts:
          [ { contact_id: 21, name: 'd' }
          , { contact_id: 22, name: 'e' }
          , { contact_id: 23, name: 'x', feedback: 'z' } // <--
          ]
      }
    , { client_id: 3
      , contacts:
          [ { contact_id: 31, name: 'g' }
          , { contact_id: 32, name: 'h' }
          , { contact_id: 33, name: 'i' }
          ]
      }
    ]
}