Couchdb query for values calculated from key input - couchdb

Question

suppose i have the following data in my database:
[1,2],[2,1],[1,3],[3,1]...
were the numbers represent the a and b values of the formula a*x+b
what i now want is a query that returns the difference to a given point x,y.
for example: the point [2,6] is given. i want my query to return
[1,2] = -2 (1*2+2=4 4-6=-2)
[2,1] = -1 (2*2+1=5 5-6=-1)
[1,3] = -1 (1*2+3=5 4-6=-1)
[3,1] = 1 (3*2+1=7 7-6=-1)
I know how to do this in SQL but the data is already in a couchdb. I'm quite new to the NoSQL world and was wondering if something like this would be possible in couchdb.

Answer 1

what you can do is to use the standard MapReduce functionality of CouchDB.
Map is function you put in a view, which finds your data. You can have various criteria how to locate the docs you need. Next, if you specify so in the query with reduce=true, a reduce function is executed on each document that matched the map condition. You can use JavaScript to perform various operations on the document's values.
In your case, the map can look something like this:
function(doc) {
if(doc.a && doc.b) {
emit(doc._id,[doc.a, doc.b]);
}
}
then, the reduce gets called, like this:
function(keys, values, rereduce) {
var res;
//do something with values...
return res;
}
In your case keys will be list of document ID's and values will be the array of your a & b fields.
When you call the MapReduce (depending what method you use to access the DB), you should specify reduce=true.
Good resources on MapReduce (and on Views, Sorting and List funtions) are:
http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/views.html
http://www.slideshare.net/okurow/couchdb-mapreduce-13321353
Another way to go is to use a list function on the Map result, if you want to output the result in HTML. A good reason to use List function is that you can pass arguments to it with querystring, in your case it may be the point for which you want to calculate distances.
For detailed description on List functions, have a look here:
http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/transforming.html
Hope this helps.