hive 0.2.0

Lightweight and blazing fast key-value store written in pure Dart. Stronly encrypted using AES-256.

Hive

Hive is a lightweight and blazing fast key/value store written in pure Dart.

It is fun to use and stronly encrypted using AES-256.
Read, write and delete operations only need a single disk access.

Hive is not ready for production yet

Getting Started

Initialize

Hive needs a directory where it can store its data. Call Hive.init() the first time you use Hive.

Hive.init('path/to/hive');

Open a Box

All of your data is stored in boxes.

var box = await Hive.box('testBox');

Just provide an encryptionKey to encrypt a box:

var key = Hive.generateSecureKey();
var box = await Hive.box('secureBox', encryptionKey: key);

Read & Write

Hive supports all primitive types, List, Map, DateTime, Uint8List and null. Any object can be can stored using TypeAdapters

var dog = Dog(name: 'Nero', age: 4);

await box.put('myDog', dog);

Dog myDog = await box.get('myDog');

Documentation

Contens

• Init
• Boxes
  • Open box
  • Read from box
  • Write to box
  • Has key
  • Delete key
  • Watch changes
  • Close box
• TypeAdapters
  • Create Adapter
  • Register Adapter
• Encryption
  • Generate key
  • Open encrypted box
• Compactation
• Benchmark
• Limitations

Init

When your program starts, Hive has to be initialized. Give it a directory where it can store its files. It is recommended to use an empty directory and not to store any other data there. Each box will have it's own .hive file in the Hive-home directory.

Hive.init('path/to/hive');

If you use a directory outside your app files, make sure to request runtime permission on iOS and Android.

Hint: This is not needed when Hive runs in the browser

Boxes

All data is stored in boxes. A box can be compared to a table in SQL but it does not have a structure and can contain anything.

For a small app, a single box might be enough. For more advanced problems, boxes are a great way to categorize your data.

Boxes can also be encrypted to store sensitive data.

Open Box

Before a box can be used, you have to open it:

var box = await Hive.box('testBox');

If the box is already open, it will be returned immediately. This is a very fast and cheap operation so you don't have to store the box instance.

Option	Description
encryptionKey	Used to decrypt an encrypted box. Go to Encryption for more information.
inMemory	An in-memory box caches all values. This can lead to major performance improvements and should be considered for frequently used data.

Once you obtained a box instance, you can read, write and delete entries.

Read from box

Reading from a box is almost like accessing a Map:

String name = await box.get('name');

DateTime birthday = await box['birthday'];

If the key does not exist, null is returned. Optionally you can specify a defaultValue which will be returned in case the key does not exist.

double height = await box.get('randomKey', defaultValue: 17.5);

Write to box

Writing is just as easy as reading. All keys have to be ASCII Strings with a max lenght of 255 chars.

await box.put('name', 'Paul');
await box.put('friends', ['Dave', 'Simon', 'Lisa']);

Important: Writing null is not the same as deleting a value.

Has key

You can check if the box contains a specific key:

var exists = await box.has('something');

This operation is really fast. No disk access is needed.

Delete key

If you want to change an existing value, you can either override it using put() or delete it:

var deleted = await box.delete('key');

If the key does not exist, no disk access is needed and the returned Future finishes immediately.

Watch changes

You can watch a box for changes. A BoxEvent will be emitted every time an entry in the box is being changed or deleted.

var subscription = box.watch().listen(
  onData: (BoxEvent event) {
    if (event.deleted) {
      print("Entry with key ${event.key} has been deleted.");
    } else {
      print("Key ${event.key} is now associated with ${event.value}.");
    }
  },
});

If you dont want to be notified any more, you can cancel the subscription:

await subscription.cancel();

Close box

If you don't need a box again, you should close it. All cached keys of the box will be dropped from memory and the box file will be closed after all active read and write operations finished.

It is not recommended to open and close the same box frequently because this leads to unnecessary disk accesses. If you need a box again in the future, just leave it open.

var box = await Hive.open('myBox');
await box.put('hello', 'world');
await box.close();

Before your application exits, you should call Hive.close() to close all open boxes.

TypeAdapters

Hive supports all primitive types, List, Map, DateTime, Uint8List and null. If you want to store other objects, you have to register a TypeAdapter which converts your object from and to binary form.

Create Adapter

Important: Test your custom TypeAdapter thoroughly. If it does not work correctly, it may corrupt your box.

It is very easy to implement a TypeAdapter. Here is the DataTimeAdapter used by Hive internally:

class DataTimeAdapter extends TypeAdapter<DateTime> {
  @override
  DateTime read(BinaryReader reader) {
    var millis = reader.readInt();
    return DateTime.fromMillisecondsSinceEpoch(millis);
  }

  @override
  void write(BinaryWriter writer, DateTime obj) {
    writer.writeInt(obj.millisecondsSinceEpoch);
  }
}

The read() method is called when your object has to be read from the disk. Use the BinaryReader to read all properties of your object. In the above sample it is only an int containing millisecondsSinceEpoch.
The write() method is the same just for writing the object to disk.

Important: Make sure, you read properties in the same order you have written them before.

Register Adapter

When you want Hive to use your TypeAdapter, you have to register it. Two things are needed for that: An instance of your adapter and a typeId. Every type has a unique typeId which is used to find the correct adapter when a value is brought back from disk. The typeIds 0-32 are reserved for primitive and built in types.

You can register TypeAdapters for a specific box or globally for all boxes:

Hive.registerAdapter(MyObjectAdapter(), 33); // Register MyObjectAdapter for all boxes

box.registerAdapter(MyOtherAdapter(), 34); // Register MyOtherAdapter for the box

Box adapters always have precedence over global adapters.

SUPER IMPORTANT: Make sure to use typeIds consistently. Your changes have to be compatible to previous versions of the box.

Encryption

The box file can be securely encrypted on disk using AES-256 CBC.

Generate key

You can either generate the encryption key yourself or call Hive.generateSecureKey() to generate a key.

Make sure you store the key securely when your application is closed. With Flutter you can use the flutter_secure_storage or a similar package.

Open encrypted box

To open an encrypted box, pass a 256-bit (32 byte) encryptionKey. You have to supply the same encryption key every time you open that box.

var box = Hive.box('myBox', encryptionKey: key);

Compactation

Hive is an append-only data store. When you change or delete a value, the change is written to the end of the box file. This leads sooner or later to a growing box file. Hive may automatically "compact" your box at any time.

It may benefit the start time of your app if you call Hive.close(compact: true) before your app exits to induce compactation of all boxes manually.

Benchmark

Coming soon.

Limitations

• HIVE IS NOT READY FOR PRODUCTION YET
• Keys have to be ASCII Strings with a max length of 255 chars.
• The supported integer values include all integers between -2^53 and 2^53, and some integers with larger magnitude
• Strings can have a maximum of 65536 bytes. Mind that a Unicode chars may be longer than one byte.
• Lists and Maps cannot have more than 65536 elements.
• Only one process can access a box at any time. Bad things happen otherwise.

Licence

Copyright 2019 Simon Leier

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.