chest 0.0.4-0

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⚠ This package is currently in active development and is not production-ready just yet. Breaking changes are still to be expected. Stay tuned!

A type-safe in-memory database with amazing developer experience.

documentation · examples · how it works · FAQ

What's a database? It's just a place where you can persist data beyond your app's lifetime. Chest offers exactly that: persistent variables called chests.

var counter = Chest<int>('counter', ifNew: () => 0);
await counter.open();
print('This program ran ${counter.value} times.');
counter.value++;
await counter.close();

But isn't treating databases like variables inefficient? Not at all! To be clear, you don't need to read or save the whole object every time you make a change. Chest allows you to only change part of a value, even fields marked with final.

var me = Chest('me', ifNew: () => User());
await me.open();
me.value; // Decodes the whole user.
me.pet.value; // Only decodes the pet.
me.pet.favoriteFood.color.value = Color.red; // Only changes the color.

The important thing is that me is not a User, but a Reference<User>. Only when you use the .value getters or setters, you actually decode or change a subtree of the data.

This is especially handy if you're dealing with large maps:

var users = Chest<Map<String, User>>('users', ifNew: () => {});
await users.open();
var marcel = users['marcel'].value; // Only decodes Marcel.
users['jonas'].value = User(...); // Only saves Jonas.

Hang on. How does Chest know how to handle my types? Chest comes with its own encoding called tape. Some types already have built-in tapers (serializers for objects). You can annotate your types with @tape and let Chest generate tapers automatically:

// Run `dart pub run build_runner build` in the command line.
part 'this_file.g.dart';

@tape
class Fruit {
  final String name;
  final Color color;
}

Other perks #

• ❤️ Amazing developer experience. Just like you can inspect your program with Dart's DevTools, you can inspect, debug, and edit your database with ChestTools live in your browser.
• 🎈 Lightweight. Chest is written in pure Dart and has no native dependencies. That means it works on any platform.

Intrigued? Here's how to get started. #