DocumentDB and client side javascript API for querying a collection

Question

I'm playing with DocumentDB's client side javascript API. I want to be able to query a collection. I'd like to use a collection URL, something like: "https://mydocumentdb.documents.azure.com:9443/dbs/my_db/colls/my_users" but there appears to be no API function for me to query a documentdb collection without first having the database "self link" and then in turn getting the collections "self link". The only way to get these self links appears to be to first iterate through all my DB's and then pull the right self link, then iterate through my collections, get the collection, finally, use my self link that I got from the service to query the collection.

Really???

Answer 1

Not exactly.

You're correct in that you have to query for a collection's self-link prior to querying the collection. (I know... this can be quite annoying, and is being looked in to by the DocDB team).

However, there is no need to iterate through all of your DB/collections to retrieve self-links as they are indexed server-side.

It is better to query directly for the particular DB/collection you're looking for, which looks something like: client.queryCollections(database._self, 'SELECT * FROM collections c WHERE c.id="' + collectionId + '"'), where collectionId is an identifier you assign.