Raven db: creating a new database - ravendb

Question

I am new to raven db. I have read the API and try to create a database . It has something like EnsureDatabaseExists function which creates the database if it does not exist. It actually uses DocumentDatabase type to create that database. I use it and it creates the database but I want to use this object directly so that using this object I can directly work with documents. Am i doing right? Or can there be any better approach then this to work with documents.Thank you.

Answer 1

I think you're confusing the database document and querying documents.
The database document is a document on the default database, which just represent a database in RavenDB which is not the default database. It stores some data like the database name and location. You, as a consumer of ravendb as nothing to do with this document. And this has nothing to do with querying any other documents.
Look here in order to learn how to query ravendb for documents. In order to query a specific database, if you work just with that database than you better just specify the database name in the connection string. If you work against multiy databases at once, you can specify the database name that you want when you open a session, store.OpenSession("database-name").

Answer 2

Three methods are available on store.DatabaseCommands.GlobalAdmin.
GetDatabaseNames: lists database names
EnsureDatabaseExists: creates database if it does not exists
CreateDatabase: creates database
Note that DocumentStore.Initialize() already ensures that the database is created. You can pass a boolean false to avoid this behavior.
// init store object, you pass the service URL + the database name
var store = new DocumentStore("http://localhost:8001/databases/MyNewDataBase");
store.Initialize(false);
// most simple thing is:
var dbName = store.DefaultDatabase;
store.DatabaseCommands.GlobalAdmin.EnsureDatabaseExists(dbName);
If you want to check without creating:
// there is a method to list the database names
bool exists = false;
for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++)
{
var names = store.DatabaseCommands.GlobalAdmin.GetDatabaseNames(100, i * 100);
if (names.Contains(dbName))
{
exists = true;
break;
}
if (names.Length < 100)
{
// no more databases
break;
}
}
if (exists)
{
// database exists, do something
}
Reference: https://ravendb.net/docs/article-page/3.5/Csharp/client-api/commands/how-to/create-delete-database