Schema

While you can use OrientDB in schema-less mode, there are times in which you need to enforce your own data model using a schema. OrientDB supports schema-full, schema-less and schema hybrid modes.

• Schema Full Enables the strict-mode at a class-level defining all fields as mandatory.
• Schema Less: Enables the creation of classes with no properties. This non-strict mode is the default in OrientDB and allows records to have arbitrary fields.
• Schema Hybrid: Enables a mix of classes that are schema-full and schema-less.

Bear in mind, changes made to the schema are not transactional. You must execute these operations outside of a transaction.

To access the schema through the Console, use SELECT.

In order to access and work with the schema through the Java API, you need to get the OMetadata object from the database, then call the getSchema() method. For instance,

OSchema schema = database.getMetadata().getSchema();

This sets the object schema, which you can then use to further define classes and properties:

• Document Database Classes
• Document Database Properties

For more information on how to access the schema through SQL or the Console, see Querying the Schema.