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Content Updates
October 19, 2011
Added a new chapter, .
Updated screenshots and cURL examples to use CouchDB 1.1.0.
Addressed a few changes and new features in CouchDB 1.1.0.
Updated some hyperlinks to referenced resources and technologies.
Acknowledgments
Id first like to thank Damien Katz, creator of CouchDB, and all of CouchDBs contributors. The CouchDB communityvia the #couchdb
IRC channel on Freenodewas very helpful in entertaining my questions while writing this book. J. Chris Anderson and MC Brown of , MapReduce Views for SQL Users. Mike Loukides, this books editor, and the rest of the team at OReilly Media were very responsive and helpful. Id also like to thank Jason Pelletier and Steve Parmermy colleagues at Found Linefor helping to review the material in this book. Any errors or omissions that remain are of my own making, and not the fault of any of the aforementioned reviewers.
Chapter 1. Introduction
If you are reading this book, then you likely have already installed CouchDB, explored the Futon web administration console, and created a few documents using the cURL command-line tool. You may even have created a CouchApp or other type of application that accesses documents stored in a CouchDB database. However, to use CouchDB for any practical application, you will likely need to create MapReduce views that let you query your database for meaningful data.
Note
The examples in this book were created using CouchDB 1.1.0. Features and interfaces may change in future versions of CouchDB.
Resources for Installing CouchDB
This book assumes that you have already installed CouchDB and have it up and running. If you need help with installation and setup, you may want to reference CouchDB: The Definitive Guide (OReilly), which has instructions for installing CouchDB on Unix-like systems, Mac OS X, and Windows, as well as instructions for installing from source. You can also find help on the Installation page of the CouchDB Wiki.
Note
An easy way to get CouchDB up-and-running is to install Couchbase Single Server, which is powered by CouchDB. Couchbase implements a superset of the CouchDB API, meaning that it works just like CouchDB. In addition to the core CouchDB features, Couchbase also comes with GeoCouch built-in. GeoCouch provides the ability to do geospatial indexing and querying. Couchbase offers both community and enterprise editions. Support options are available for the enterprise editions.