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!CHAPTER HTTP Interface for Collections
!SUBSECTION Collections
This is an introduction to ArangoDB's HTTP interface for collections.
!SUBSUBSECTION Collection
A collection consists of documents. It is uniquely identified by its
[collection identifier](../Glossary/index.html#collection_identifier). It also has a unique name that clients should
use to identify and access it. Collections can be renamed. This will
change the collection name, but not the collection identifier.
Collections have a type that is specified by the user when the collection
is created. There are currently two types: document and edge. The default
type is document.
!SUBSUBSECTION Collection Identifier
A collection identifier lets you refer to a collection in a database.
It is a string value and is unique within the database. Up to including
ArangoDB 1.1, the collection identifier has been a client's primary
means to access collections. Starting with ArangoDB 1.2, clients should
instead use a collection's unique name to access a collection instead of
its identifier.
ArangoDB currently uses 64bit unsigned integer values to maintain
collection ids internally. When returning collection ids to clients,
ArangoDB will put them into a string to ensure the collection id is not
clipped by clients that do not support big integers. Clients should treat
the collection ids returned by ArangoDB as opaque strings when they store
or use it locally.
Note: collection ids have been returned as integers up to including ArangoDB 1.1
!SUBSUBSECTION Collection Name
A collection name identifies a collection in a database. It is a string
and is unique within the database. Unlike the collection identifier it is
supplied by the creator of the collection. The collection name must consist
of letters, digits, and the _ (underscore) and - (dash) characters only.
Please refer to Naming Conventions in ArangoDB for more information on valid
collection names.
!SUBSUBSECTION Key Generator
ArangoDB allows using key generators for each collection. Key generators
have the purpose of auto-generating values for the _key attribute of a document
if none was specified by the user. By default, ArangoDB will use the traditional
key generator. The traditional key generator will auto-generate key values that
are strings with ever-increasing numbers. The increment values it uses are
non-deterministic.
Contrary, the auto increment key generator will auto-generate deterministic key
values. Both the start value and the increment value can be defined when the
collection is created. The default start value is 0 and the default increment
is 1, meaning the key values it will create by default are:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...
When creating a collection with the auto increment key generator and an increment of 5, the generated keys would be:
1, 6, 11, 16, 21, ...
The basic operations (create, read, update, delete) for documents are mapped
to the standard HTTP methods (*POST*, *GET*, *PUT*, *DELETE*).
!SECTION Address of a Collection
All collections in ArangoDB have an unique identifier and a unique
name. ArangoDB internally uses the collection's unique identifier to
look up collections. This identifier however is managed by ArangoDB
and the user has no control over it. In order to allow users use their
own names, each collection also has a unique name, which is specified
by the user. To access a collection from the user perspective, the
collection name should be used, i.e.:
http://server:port/_api/collection/collection-name
For example: Assume that the collection identifier is *7254820* and
the collection name is *demo*, then the URL of that collection is:
http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/demo