Are there any plans to query values?

Question

Hi there,

We're wanting to set up a time-stamped blockchain database using your new data stream functionality in Multichain 2.0. The features added here are perfect, but we've hit a snag. It turns out there is no functionality to query the database based on values. Replicating this data into the keys is not plausible due to a doubling of the data and it is too hacky for us. Are there any plans to add this in the short term, or is there some reason as to why it is a bad idea that I have not thought of? At current, we are considering using another database as a view to perform traditional querying on.

Thanks,

Charlie

Answer 1

We don't currently have plans to to allow full value querying of (e.g. JSON) values. I understand your feeling on the issue of moving data to keys, but one comment is that there's no need to have data duplication – you could remove this data from the payloads itself. Nonetheless if this feels too messy, we would indeed recommend using an external database for querying, for now.

Comments

I feel that this is really important functionality in order to use Multichain as a key value pair database. Very often systems I have worked on want to search by value, and moving the values into the keys turns a clean intuitive structure into a messy one.

Very impressed by other additions to streams however, keep up the good work!

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Thanks - we're constantly (re)evaluating how much database functionality to put into MultiChain, so your vote is noted!