TypeDB: the polymorphic database powered by types
TypeDB is a polymorphic database with a conceptual data model, a strong subtyping system, a symbolic reasoning engine, and a beautiful and elegant type-theoretic language TypeQL.
IMPORTANT NOTE: > > TypeDB & TypeQL are in the process of being rewritten in Rust. There will be significant refinement to the language, and minor breaks in backwards compatibility. Learn about the changes on our roadmap issue on GitHub. The biggest change to TypeDB 3.0 will be our storage data structure and architecture that significantly boosts performance. We’re aiming to release 3.0 in the summer this year, along with preliminary benchmarks of TypeDB.
Data frequently exhibits polymorphic features in the form of inheritance hierarchies and interface dependencies. TypeDB was crafted to solve the inability of current database paradigms to natively express these polymorphic features.
In order to fully support polymorphism, a database needs to implement three key components:
TypeDB schemas are based on a modern type system that natively supports inheritance and interfaces, and follows a conceptual data modeling approach, in which user-defined types subtype (based on their function) three root types: entities, relations, and attributes.
Interface and inheritance for these types can be combined in many ways, resulting in highly expressive ways of modeling data.
define
full-name sub attribute, value string;
id sub attribute, value string;
email sub id;
employee-id sub id;
user sub entity,
owns full-name,
owns email @unique,
plays mentorship:trainee;
employee sub user,
owns employee-id @key,
plays mentorship:mentor;
mentorship sub relation,
relates mentor,
relates trainee;
The query language of TypeDB is TypeQL. The syntax of TypeQL is fully variablizable and provides native support for polymorphic queries. The language is based on fully declarative and composable patterns, mirroring the structure of natural language.
match $user isa user,
has full-name $name,
has email $email;
# This returns all users of any type
match $user isa employee,
has full-name $name,
has email $email,
has employee-id $id;
# This returns only users who are employees
match $user-type sub user;
$user isa $user-type,
has full-name $name,
has email $email;
# This returns all users and their type
Any query in TypeDB is semantically validated by TypeDB’s inference engine for consistency with the database schema. This prevents invalid schema updates and data inserts before they can affect the integrity of the database.
TypeDB can also work with data that is not physically stored in the database, but instead logically inferred based on user-specified rules. This enables developers to cleanly separate their source data from their application logic, often allowing for complex systems to be described by combinations of simple rules.
define
rule transitive-team-membership:
when {
(team: $team-1, member: $team-2) isa team-membership;
(team: $team-2, member: $member) isa team-membership;
} then {
(team: $team-1, member: $member) isa team-membership;
};
insert
$john isa user, has email "[email protected]";
$eng isa team, has name "Engineering ";
$cloud isa team, has name "Cloud";
(team: $eng, member: $cloud) isa team-membership;
(team: $cloud, member: $john) isa team-membership;
match
$john isa user, has email "[email protected]";
(team: $team, member: $john) isa team-membership;
# This will return both Cloud and Engineering for $team due to the defined rule
TypeDB breaks down the patchwork of existing database paradigms into three fundamental ingredients: types, inheritance, and interfaces. This provides a unified way of working with data across all database applications, that directly impacts development:
For a comparison of all three editions, see the Deploy page on our website.
You can download TypeDB from the GitHub Releases.
Check our Installation guide to get started.
Note: You DO NOT NEED to compile TypeDB from the source if you just want to use TypeDB. See the "Download and Run TypeDB Core" section above.
Make sure you have the following dependencies installed on your machine:
You can build TypeDB with either one of the following commands, depending on the targeted architecture and Operation system:
$ bazel build //:assemble-linux-x86_64-targz
$ bazel build //:assemble-linux-arm64-targz
$ bazel build //:assemble-mac-x86_64-zip
$ bazel build //:assemble-mac-arm64-zip
$ bazel build //:assemble-windows-x86_64-zip
Outputs to: bazel-bin/
.
If you're on a Mac and would like to run any bazel test
commands, you will need to install:
brew install snappy
brew install jemalloc
If you want to begin your journey with TypeDB, you can explore the following resources:
TypeDB and TypeQL are built using various open-source frameworks and technologies throughout its evolution. Today TypeDB and TypeQL use Speedb, pest, SCIP, Bazel, gRPC, ZeroMQ, and Caffeine.
Thank you!
In the past, TypeDB was enabled by various open-source products and communities that we are hugely thankful to: RocksDB, ANTLR, Apache Cassandra, Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache TinkerPop, and JanusGraph.
Package repository hosting is graciously provided by Cloudsmith. Cloudsmith is the only fully hosted, cloud-native, universal package management solution, that enables your organization to create, store and share packages in any format, to any place, with total confidence.
This software is developed by Vaticle.
It's released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL 2.0).
For license information, please see LICENSE.
Vaticle also provides a commercial license for TypeDB Cloud self-hosted - get in touch with our team at [email protected].
Copyright (C) 2023 Vaticle.