Modeling hierarchical data with authentication using DynamoDB - rest

I'm looking for some best practices when it comes to modeling confidential hierarchical data in general and specifically with DynamoDB.
The scenario is best explained with an example:
Let's say we have a number of users. Each user has a number of products. Each product consists of a number of parts.
Typical use cases:
List all products for a given user
List all parts for a given product
So far I have modeled this in DynamoDB like this:
Users
----------------
HashKey: UserId
Products
-------------------
HashKey: UserId
RangeKey: ProductId
Parts
-------------------
HashKey: ProductId
RangeKey: PartId
The data is confidential and accessed through authenticated REST endpoints where an authentication token can be mapped to a UserId. Each user may be allowed to view other users' data through some group concept.
Listing all products for a given user is simple since UserId is a key in the products table:
GET /users/111/products becomes a simple Query(Table=Products, UserId=111)
But consider the case of listing all parts for a given product:
GET /users/111/products/222/parts
If I simply do a Query(Table=Parts, ProductId=222) then I will get the desired data fast, but I am not protecting against other users querying for data belonging to user 111, provided they somehow know about ProductId 222 (in reality, ID:s will of course be UUID:s or similar so not so easily guessable):
GET /users/119/products/222/parts
... would result in malicious user 119 retrieving data that doesn't belong to him, provided nothing is done to address this.
So here I imagine I need to do something like one of these:
First make another query to make sure product 222 in fact belongs to the given user
Duplicate the UserId in the Parts table and include it in the query condition (which basically means it will match either all rows or no rows when scanning through the set identified by ProductId): Query(Table=Parts, ProductId=222, UserId=111)
Use UserId as the hash key also in the Parts table and instead keep ProductId as a secondary index
Use a composite HashKey such as UserId_ProductId ("111_222") on the Parts table
If I need to return a 401 as opposed to just empty data, option 1 seems like the only approach. But if we imagine a deeper hierarchy of data, e.g. "users having inboxes having messages having parts having attachments" it seems this approach could eventually be expensive (listing all attachments for part P might result in a query to check that part P belongs to message M, that message M belongs to inbox I and that inbox I belongs to user U, and so on).
Does anyone have any good arguments for which approach is most favorable? Or am I doing something stupid and should be modeling my data in some other way completely?

Related

Looking for pseudo code of best/clean way to create and check unique room "names" for every chat between two users using socket.io/react.js/mongodb

my flow:
User A selects user B in the user list:
system needs to check if a room for these two users exists, if not create unique room name and then join both users to the room
if exists, then just join users to the room they were already in and populate the chat with previous msges
Now what I am stuck at is how to exactly do it. Few options I am playing with in my head:
a) First how do i create the unique name that ties both users? Sure I can use string combination for both users, for example user A clicks user B --> "A&B", but this won't work when user B clicks user A, because that will be "B&A". I am struggling with creating dynamic unique names that could be applied to both.
b) do I keep an array with the two users info in the specific room saved in DB, and then check the array if user exists in it already? if so just use that room id as the room name? What is the best flow to save created rooms? Do i save by room name, which I guess would act as unique Id as well?
c) should I be checking the DB EVERYTIME user clicks another user to start a chat just to check if a room exists or not?
I know how to create rooms and all that jazz but what I am really struggling with is how to dynamically create room names so that its the same whether A clicks B or B clicks A and how to from a pseudo code level, store created rooms in DB and check for many users.
Here's an idea: Store the room in your database as a document that contains fields user1 and user2, which will contain the IDs of these users. Specifically, ensure that user1 < user2. When you need to query for this document later, you can do db.rooms.findOne({user1: smallerId, user2: largerId}). Then you can either store the room name and not use it in your queries, or you can even generate the displayed room name dynamically at runtime.
This has the benefit of not only guaranteeing the structure of a room document, but making your queries more efficient as well (you're comparing binary vs. comparing strings). There's also the benefit of not breaking the query when a user's name changes.
In general it's recommended that a document A that's associated with a different document B should refer to document B by an immutable ID, rather than by a mutable name. In this case since a room is associated with two users, have room refer to each user's ID.

REST API structure for multiple countries

I'm designing a REST API where you can search for data in different countries, but since you can search for the same thing, at the same time, in different countries (max 4), am I unsure of the best/correct way to do it.
This would work to start with to get data (I'm using cars as an example):
/api/uk,us,nl/car/123
That request could return different ids for the different countries (uk=1,us=2,nl=3), so what do I do when data is requested for those 3 countries?
For a nice structure I could get the data one at the time:
/api/uk/car/1
/api/us/car/2
/api/nl/car/3
But that is not very efficient since it hits the backend 3 times.
I could do this:
/api/car/?uk=1&us=2&nl=3
But that doesn't work very well if I want to add to that path:
/api/uk/car/1/owner
Because that would then turn into:
/api/car/owner/?uk=1&us=2&nl=3
Which doesn't look good.
Anyone got suggestions on how to structure this in a good way?
I answered a similar question before, so I will stick to that idea:
You have a set of elements -cars- and you want to filter it in some way. My advice is add any filter as a field. If the field is not present, then choose one country based on the locale of the client:
mydomain.com/api/v1/car?countries=uk,us,nl
This field should dissapear when you look for a specific car or its owner
mydomain.com/api/v1/car/1/owner
because the country is not needed (unless the car ID 1 is reused for each country)
Update:
I really did not expect the id of the car can be shared by several cars, an ID should be unique (like a primary key in a database). Then, it makes sense to keep the country parameter with the owner's search:
mydomain.com/api/v1/car/1/owner?countries=uk,us
This should return a list of people who own a car with the id 1... but for me this makes little sense as a functionality, in this search I'll only allow one country:
mydomain.com/api/v1/car/1/owner?country=uk

Use form to create multiple fields in Access 2010

So I have a form I have Vendors fill out when they want to ship to us. It's an excel form that I then import into Access so I can run reports. Sometimes when they send the form back it's in a format in which I have to manually enter the data into our database.
The form looks like this:
The middle section is just for example purposes so it's a rectangle with text in it.
So everything seemed simple enough until I got to the middle section. See in my excel form I have a section for multiple PO's and units. So essentially each shipment can have one to many PO's and Units. Currently I can approach this task with the redundant method of reentering information per PO on the form. But I want to make this simple.
So the task at hand is that I want to have a form field for PO's and Units where I can input multiple lines of information so that when I hit a submit button. It appears in the database on separate lines with the same vendor information.
So if I filled out my form had this in the middle section:
PO | Units
111111 22
222222 33
333333 44
When I hit submit I want it to attach the rest of the forms information to each PO on separate lines so it'd be like:
Vendor | City | State | PO | Units
Nike Memphis TN 111111 22
Nike Memphis TN 222222 33
Nike Memphis TN 333333 44
So how would I go about accomplishing this task?
From your description of the problem and your example of how the data appears to ultimately be stored in Access it looks to me like you are using Access as a spreadsheet and not as a database. This is ok, but you might want to consider normalizing the data to take advantage of the power of databases in general.
For example:
Create a Vendors table whose sole purpose is to keep details about each Vendor you work with. A very basic implementation would have an ID field to uniquely identify each vendor and a Name field for the vendor name.
If Vendors will only ever have a single location you could also store City, State, ZipCode and Email in this same Vendor table, but I suspect having a separate VendorLocation or VendorAddress table would be a better fit long term.
Create a VendorShipment table that tracks the higher level information on your mockup, such as:
ShipmentID (primary key of this table)
VendorID (foreign key back to Vendor table)
Ready Date
Carrier
Estimated Cost
FreightClass
Tracking #
Estimated Transit Time
Finally, create a VendorShipmentDetail table that tracks the information of each shipment, including:
ShipmentDetailID (primary key of this table)
ShipmentID (foreign key back to VendorShipment table)
PO
Units
Any other details that you want to or need to track
Organizing and storing the data in a normalized fashion would ultimately help simplify your data entry \ data management process and potentially make for a better user experience.
For example, rather than having to enter the Vendor Name, Address information, etc. each time you could instead use a combo box control that is tied to the Vendor table. If the Vendor exists in the table you select it from the list and you already have the Address information, no need to re-enter it each time. If the Vendor did not already exist you enter it once (probably on a Vendor screen where you maintain the details for each Vendor) and draw upon the information in the future.
You would then use queries to tie the information back together for reporting purposes (de-normalize the information).
The art of database design can take a while to pick up, but a good starting point might be to check out the Northwind database that Microsoft has maintained over the years. It has some examples you could draw from immediately to get a practical understanding of how to use normalization within Access. You can find more information here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/northwind-sales-web-database-TC101114818.aspx

Need a good database design for this situation

I am making an application for a restaurant.
For some food items, there are some add-ons available - e.g. Toppings for Pizza.
My current design for Order Table-
FoodId || AddOnId
If a customer opts for multiple addons for a single food item (say Topping and Cheese Dip for a Pizza), how am I gonna manage?
Solutions I thought of -
Ids separated by commas in AddOnId column (Bad idea i guess)
Saving Combinations of all addon as a different addon in Addon Master Table.
Making another Trans table for only Addon for ordered food item.
Please suggest.
PS - I searched a lot for a similar question but cudnt find one.
Your relationship works like this:
(1 Order) has (1 or more Food Items) which have (0 or more toppings).
The most detailed structure for this will be 3 tables (in addition to Food Item and Topping):
Order
Order to Food Item
Order to Food Item to Topping
Now, for some additional details. Let's start flushing out the tables with some fields...
Order
OrderId
Cashier
Server
OrderTime
Order to Food Item
OrderToFoodItemId
OrderId
FoodItemId
Size
BaseCost
Order to Food Item to Topping
OrderToFoodItemId
ToppingId
LeftRightOrWhole
Notice how much information you can now store about an order that is not dependent on anything except that particular order?
While it may appear to be more work to maintain more tables, the truth is that it structures your data, allowing you many added advantages... not the least of which is being able to more easily compose sophisticated reports.
You want to model two many-to-many realtionships by the sound of it.
i.e. Many products (food items) can belong to many orders, and many addons can belong to many products:
Orders
Id
Products
Id
OrderLines
Id
OrderId
ProductId
Addons
Id
ProductAddons
Id
ProductId
AddonId
Option 1 is certainly a bad idea as it breaks even first normal form.
why dont you go for many-to-many relationship.
situation: one food can have many toppings, and one toppings can be in many food.
you have a food table and a toppings table and another FoodToppings bridge table.
this is just a brief idea. expand the database with your requirement
You're right, first one is a bad idea, because it is not compliant with normal form of tables and it would be hard to maintain it (e.g. if you remove some addon you would need to parse strings to remove ids from each row - really slow).
Having table you have already there is nothing wrong, but the primary key of that table will be (foodId, addonId) and not foodId itself.
Alternatively you can add another "id" not to use compound primary key.

Efficient way to model azure table storage for social networking

I have tables like this in SQL Server
Users
UserId (Unique)
Name
Age
Friends
UserId
FriendId
Topics
UserId
Subject
There can be several thousands of users. and there are several other properties in the table.
I can query to get following answers.
Give me all the friends of user "Tom".
Give me all the topics created by "Tom".
Give me all the topics created by Tom's friends that contains "abc" in the subject.
If I were to do it in Azure table storage, how do I structure my tables?
I have gone through this and this I would like someone who had more experience on modeling Azure Table storage to give some insights..
1 and 2 are pretty easy. You create two Azure tables - Friends and Topics indexed by user id (with user id in the key).
3rd one is much more difficult with Azure tables, especially "that contains 'abc' in the subject" part.
Azure tables don't support full text search. Basically it is only possible to efficiently retrieve values (or range of values) either using exact keys or using 'startswith' operator. Like "Give me all records where key is equal to 'key value'". Or "give me all records where key is greated than 'key lower bound' and is less than 'key upper bound'".
It is also possible to filter using 'startswith' by any non-key field of a record, but this will involve table scan and is not efficient. It's not possible to do similar filtering with 'contains'.
So I think you need something with full text search support here.