Is your DataMapper CouchDB adapter PUT'ing where it shouldn't?

It sounds gross, sure...but this was actually a simple problem I foresee someone running into and potentially running around mad about for an hour if they're not too keen on how DataMapper/CouchDB work together. Even if you DO know how they work together, this was still a fun problem to track down.

So let's take an example model that's extremely simple:

class Person
include DataMapper::Resource
# CouchDB Specific
property :id, String, :key => true, :serial => true, :field => :_id
property :rev, String, :field => :_rev
#App Specific
property :name, String, :nullable => false, :length => 75, :key => true
end


Looks harmless, right? That's what I thought too! Well, if you begin your application and get to the point of actually creating a Person you'll be greeted with an error that kicks off with "EOFError: end of file reached ".

So what's happening here?

Basically in the adapter, there is a LOC in the create method where it checks to see if there is a key or not (Yea, the one we've specified above as :name).

This creates an assumption of using PUT instead of POST and that is where the issue stems from. So, to fix this problem, all you need to do is DROP the :key => true and things will run as they should.

Now you're probably asking "But, what if I NEED to have that key there, I NEED to relate my models with a foreign key". Not to sound harsh, but just to be clear, you may want to revisit why you're using CouchDB in the first place.