Working with Documents

Creating a Document

To create a new document, connect to the database and call PostDocumentAsync(). Specify the collection name and the object/document to be created in ArangoDB.

// Create document in the MyCollection collection using anonymous type
await db.Document.PostDocumentAsync(
    "MyCollection",
    new
    {
        MyProperty = "Value"
    });

// Create document in the MyCollection collection using strong type
await db.Document.PostDocumentAsync(
    "MyCollection",
    new MyClass
    {
        ItemNumber = 123456,
        Description = "Some item"
    });

The document object must not have any value against the property named _key, if you expect ArangoDB to generate the document key for you. The default serializer options specify that null values are ignored, so if your class has a _key property, you can leave it as null when creating a new document. If you change the serializer options so that IgnoreNullValues is false, then you cannot create a new document using a class that specifies a property named _key, because the ArangoDB API rejects the request.

Patching a Document

To patch or partially update a document, connect to the database and call PatchDocumentAsync(). Specify the collection name, the document key, and an object with properties to patch in the ArangoDB document.

// Partially update document
await db.Document.PatchDocumentAsync<object, object>(
    "MyCollection",
    item._key,
    new { Description = "More description" });

Replacing a Document

To replace or fully update a document, connect to the database and call PutDocumentAsync(). Specify the collection name, the document key, and the object which fully updates/replaces the document in ArangoDB.

// Fully update document
item.Description = "Some item with some more description";
await db.Document.PutDocumentAsync(
    $"MyCollection/{item._key}",
    item);

Deleting a Document

To delete a document, connect to the database and call DeleteDocumentAsync(), passing the ID of the document.

// Deletes a document
await db.Document.DeleteDocumentAsync($"MyCollection/{item._key}");