Object Identity and Object References

Introduction

In Starcounter, an object reference uses an implicit foreign key to an implicit primary key called ObjectId as well as allowing natural keys and public keys to exist and be joined on when needed.

Object Identity

Each object has a ObjectNo and ObjectID property that can be accessed using SQL or the extension methods Object.GetObjectNo() and Object.GetObjectID().

ObjectNo is a unique ulong that can be treated as a primary key. The value becomes available when a database object is created, and is never changed.

ObjectID is a URL Base64 string representation of ObjectNo. It's friendly for sending over the Internet. For example, ObjectID for ObjectNo=40023 is "JxX". ObjectID may contain [A-Za-z0-9-_] characters. Since string comparison in SQL is case insensitive, SQL queries using ObjectID may return more than one result.

Primary Keys and Foreign Keys

As each object already has a unique key in ObjectNo, we recommend adding other keys when you need them, such as public keys that are meant to be exposed to the end user. Objects should be referenced using an object reference rather than by a foreign key except if there is a clear need for natural key referencing.

Retrieving from Object Identity

Objects are retrieved from identity with Db.FromId. It handles both ObjectID and ObjectNo.

A common use is in handlers like this where Person is a database object:

Handle.GET("PersonList/{?}", (string objectId) =>
{
    return new PersonPage()
    {
        Data = Db.FromId<Person>(objectId)
    };
});

There are four overloads of Db.FromId:

T Db.FromId<T>(string base64Id);
T Db.FromId<T>(ulong id);
IObjectView FromId(ulong id);
IObjectView FromId(string base64Id);