Datomic Documentation
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Pull

Pull is a declarative way to make hierarchical (and possibly nested) selections of information about entities. Pull applies a pattern to a collection of entities, building a map for each entity. Pull is available

Patterns support forward and reverse attribute navigation, wildcarding, nesting, recursion, naming control, transformation, defaults, and limits on the results returned. Entities can be passed to pull as any kind of entity identifier: entity ids, idents, or lookup refs.

Pull patterns are written in the Extensible Data Notation (edn), which is programming language neutral. In programs, you can create patterns programmatically out of your basic language data types, e.g. Java Strings, Lists, and Maps. Alternatively, you can pass the pattern argument as a serialized edn string.

The results below are also written with edn, and they use an ellipsis ... where large results have been elided for brevity.

If you want to follow along at a REPL, most of the examples on this page use the mbrainz-subset database and can be found in the Day of Datomic Cloud repository and are covered in the Day of Datomic Cloud video sessions.

Example Notes

The examples will use the following: 

(def dylan-harrison-sessions (ffirst (d/q '[:find ?release
                                           :where [?zimbo :artist/name "Bob Dylan"]
                                                  [?magpie :artist/name "George Harrison"]
                                                  [?release :release/artists ?zimbo]
                                                  [?release :release/artists ?magpie]]
                                         db)))

(def ghost-riders (ffirst (d/q '[:find ?track
                                 :in $ ?release ?trackno
                                 :where [?release :release/media ?medium]
                                        [?medium :medium/tracks ?track]
                                        [?track :track/position ?trackno]]
                               db
                               dylan-harrison-sessions
                               11)))

(def led-zeppelin (ffirst (d/q '[:find ?artist
                                 :where [?artist :artist/name "Led Zeppelin"]]
                               db)))


(def mccartney (ffirst (d/q '[:find ?artist
                              :where [?artist :artist/name "Paul McCartney"]]
                               db)))

(def concert-for-bangla-desh (ffirst (d/q '[:find ?release-name
                                            :where [?release-name :release/name "The Concert for Bangla Desh"]]
                                          db)))

(def dark-side-of-the-moon (ffirst (d/q '[:find ?release-name
                                            :where [?release-name :release/name "The Dark Side of the Moon"]]
                                          db)))

Pull Grammar

Grammar Syntax

'' literal
"" string
[] = list or vector
{} = map {k1 v1 ...}
() grouping
| choice
+ one or more

Pull Pattern Grammar

pattern             = [attr-spec+]
attr-spec           = attr-name | wildcard | map-spec | attr-expr
attr-name           = an edn keyword that names an attr
map-spec            = { ((attr-name | attr-expr) (pattern | recursion-limit))+ }
attr-expr           = [attr-name attr-option+] | legacy-attr-expr
as-expr             = [attr-name ":as" any-value]
limit-expr          = [attr-name ":limit" (positive-number | nil)] 
default-expr        = [attr-name ":default" any-value]
xform-expr          = [attr-name ":xform" symbol]
attr-option         = as-expr | limit-expr | default-expr | xform-expr
wildcard            = "*" or '*'
recursion-limit     = positive-number | '...'
legacy-attr-expr    = legacy-limit-expr | legacy-default-expr
legacy-limit-expr   = [("limit" | 'limit') attr-name (positive-number | nil)]
legacy-default-expr = [("default" | 'default') attr-name any-value]

Terminals such as "limit" can be strings, but where languages have a symbol type you should prefer the idiomatic symbolic type, e.g. (limit :friends 100) in Clojure instead of ("limit" "friends" 100).

Patterns

A pattern is a list of Attribute Specifications. 

pattern            = [attr-spec+]

Attribute Specifications

attr-spec           = attr-name | wildcard | map-spec | attr-expr
attr-expr           = [attr-name attr-option+] | legacy-attr-expr
attr-option         = as-expr | limit-expr | default-expr | xform-expr
wildcard            = "*" or '*'
recursion-limit     = positive-number | '...'
legacy-attr-expr    = legacy-limit-expr | legacy-default-expr
legacy-limit-expr   = [("limit" | 'limit') attr-name (positive-number | nil)]
legacy-default-expr = [("default" | 'default') attr-name any-value]

An attribute spec specifies an attribute to be returned, and (optionally) what additional transformations to perform on the value before it is returned. Attribute specs can be attribute names, wildcards, map specs, or attribute expressions.

Attribute Names

attr-name          = an edn keyword that names an attr

An attribute spec names an attribute, with an optional leading underscore on the name part of the keyword to reverse the direction of navigation.

Attribute Name Example

The following pattern uses two attribute names to return an :artist/name and :artist/startYear, pulling on led-zeppelin: 

;; pattern
[:artist/name :artist/startYear]

;; Example
(d/pull db '[:artist/name :artist/startYear] led-zeppelin)


=> #:artist{:name "Led Zeppelin", :startYear 1968}

Reverse Lookup

An underscore prefix (_) on the name part of an attribute ident causes the attribute to be navigated in reverse. If you name your attributes with an underscore leading the name portion of the keyword, those attributes cannot be used with reverse lookup.

Normally, pull returns a map of attributes and values (which may be nested entities) selected from the entity supplied as the last argument to the pull call. For example, (d/pull db [:release/artists] led-zeppelin) would attempt to pull the :release/artists attribute from the led-zeppelin entity.

The underscore prefix reverses the direction of a pull, so (d/pull db [:release/_artists] led-zeppelin) will pull all of the entities that have a :release/artists attribute with the value of led-zeppelin.

Attribute Name Reverse Lookup Example

As an exploratory measure led-zeppelin is pulled with a wildcard. :release/artists is not part of the result.

You can navigate 'backwards' from :release/artists to find the releases with a reference to led-zeppelin by pulling :release/_artists

Attributes like :artist/startYear or :artist/name would not work with reverse lookup as there is no reference value. 

(d/pull db '[:release/artists] led-zeppelin)

=> {}


;; What does led-zeppelin have?

(d/pull db '[*] led-zeppelin)


=>
{:artist/sortName "Led Zeppelin",
 :artist/name "Led Zeppelin",
 :artist/type #:db{:id 70746976177619070, :ident :artist.type/group},
 :artist/country #:db{:id 47850746040811801, :ident :country/GB},
 :artist/gid #uuid "678d88b2-87b0-403b-b63d-5da7465aecc3",
 :artist/endDay 25,
 :artist/startYear 1968,
 :artist/endMonth 9,
 :artist/endYear 1980,
 :db/id 2458507999719892}
;; :release/artists is not there...

(d/pull db '[* :release/_artists] led-zeppelin)

=>
{:artist/sortName "Led Zeppelin",
 :artist/name "Led Zeppelin",
 :artist/type #:db{:id 70746976177619070, :ident :artist.type/group},
 :artist/country #:db{:id 47850746040811801, :ident :country/GB},
 :artist/gid #uuid "678d88b2-87b0-403b-b63d-5da7465aecc3",
 :artist/endDay 25,
 :artist/startYear 1968,
 :artist/endMonth 9,
 :release/_artists
 [#:db{:id 12591607161327185}   ;; ----.
  #:db{:id 13611953951903311}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 14614708556444205}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 20349761206917151}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 27505382880490028}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 30606005670815267}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 36437815344539172}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 38834750693087262}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 43703388180886059}   ;;     |-- Releases
  #:db{:id 43910096366902013}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 45994770413170389}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 49236130691853680}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 51514318784597586}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 54157544737773785}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 58683134597703205}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 66718365573484112}   ;;     | 
  #:db{:id 71402285107818196}], ;; ----' 
 :artist/endYear 1980,
 :db/id 2458507999719892}

Map Specification

map-spec           = { ((attr-name | limit-expr) (pattern | recursion-limit))+ }
limit-expr         = [("limit" | 'limit') attr-name (positive-number | nil)]
recursion-limit    = positive-number | '...'

You can explicitly specify the handling of referenced entities by using a map instead of just an attribute name. The simplest map specification is a map specifying a specific pattern for a particular attr-name.

Map Specification Example

The :track/artists attribute appears in a map spec, causing the :db/id and :artist/name to be sub-pulled for each artist on the track ghost-riders. 

(d/pull db '[:track/name {:track/artists [:db/id :artist/name]}] ghost-riders)

=>
{:track/artists [{:db/id 17592186048186, :artist/name "Bob Dylan"}
                 {:db/id 17592186049854, :artist/name "George Harrison"}],
 :track/name "Ghost Riders in the Sky"}

Map Specification Nesting Example

Map specs can nest arbitrarily. The pattern below pulls concert-for-bangla-desh's media's tracks' titles and artists' names: 

(d/pull db '[{:release/media
              [{:medium/tracks
                [:track/name {:track/artists [:artist/name]}]}]}] concert-for-bangla-desh)

=>
[{:medium/tracks
    [{:track/artists
        [{:artist/name "Ravi Shankar"} {:artist/name "George Harrison"}],
        :track/name "George Harrison / Ravi Shankar Introduction"}
    {:track/artists [{:artist/name "Ravi Shankar"}],
        :track/name "Bangla Dhun"}]}
 {:medium/tracks
     [{:track/artists [{:artist/name "George Harrison"}],
         :track/name "Wah-Wah"}
     {:track/artists [{:artist/name "George Harrison"}],
         :track/name "My Sweet Lord"}
     {:track/artists [{:artist/name "George Harrison"}],
         :track/name "Awaiting on You All"}
     {:track/artists [{:artist/name "Billy Preston"}],
         :track/name "That's the Way God Planned It"}]
             ...]}

Attribute Spec

attr-spec           = attr-name | wildcard | map-spec | attr-expr | xform-expr
attr-expr           = [attr-name attr-option+] | legacy-attr-expr
attr-option         = as-expr | limit-expr | default-expr

You can use an attribute spec to declare various aspects of the corresponding values returned by Pull.

Note that the pattern appears in a seq. This necessitates that the whole clause be quoted or that the pattern is in a vector.

:as Option

[attr-name ":as" any-value]

The :as option can be used to declare what an attribute should be renamed to in the result map.

:as Option Example

The following pattern uses an :as option to pull an :artist/name, replacing the key in the result map with the string "Band Name", pulling on led-zeppelin. 

(d/pull db '[[:artist/name :as "Band Name"]] led-zeppelin)

=> {"Band Name" "Led Zeppelin"}

:limit Option

[attr-name ":limit" (positive-number | nil)]

By default, Pull will return the first 1000 values for a cardinality-many attribute, but you can control that by providing either a positive number or nil for the :limit option. All values for a cardinality-many attribute will be returned if you explicitly provide a nil limit.

:limit Option Example

To return only 10 of led-zeppelin's tracks: 

(d/pull db '[:artist/name [:track/_artists :limit 10]] led-zeppelin)

=>
{:artist/name "Led Zeppelin",
 :track/_artists
 [{:db/id 17592186057344}
  {:db/id 17592186057345}
  {:db/id 17592186057346}
  {:db/id 17592186057347}
  {:db/id 17592186057348}
  {:db/id 17592186057349}
  {:db/id 17592186057350}
  {:db/id 17592186057351}
  {:db/id 17592186057352}
  {:db/id 17592186057355}]}

:limit Inside a Map Specification Example

Pulling from led-zeppelin, you can get a limited set of nested track names with: 

(d/pull db '[{[:track/_artists :limit 10] [:track/name]}] led-zeppelin)

=>
{:track/_artists
 [{:track/name "Whole Lotta Love"}
  {:track/name "What Is and What Should Never Be"}
  {:track/name "The Lemon Song"}
  {:track/name "Thank You"}
  {:track/name "Heartbreaker"}
  {:track/name "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)"}
  {:track/name "Ramble On"}
  {:track/name "Moby Dick"}
  {:track/name "Bring It on Home"}
  {:track/name "Whole Lotta Love"}]}

Nil :limit Example

The pattern below returns all of Led Zeppelin's tracks, without limit: 

(d/pull db '[:artist/name [:track/_artists :limit nil]] led-zeppelin)

=>
{:artist/name "Led Zeppelin",
 :track/_artists
 [{:db/id 17592186057344}
  {:db/id 17592186057345}
  {:db/id 17592186057346}
  {:db/id 17592186057347}
  {:db/id 17592186057348}
  {:db/id 17592186057349}
  {:db/id 17592186057350}
  {:db/id 17592186057351}
  {:db/id 17592186057352}
  {:db/id 17592186057355}
  {:db/id 17592186057356}
  {:db/id 17592186057357}
  {:db/id 17592186057358}
  {:db/id 17592186057359}
  {:db/id 17592186057360}
  {:db/id 17592186057361}
  {:db/id 17592186057362}
  {:db/id 17592186057363}
  {:db/id 17592186057366}
  {:db/id 17592186057367}
  ...]} ;; lots more

:default Option

[attr-name ":default" any-value]

The :default option specifies a value to return if an entity has no value for that attribute.

:default Option Example

The following select reports a zero :artist/endYear for Paul McCartney (mccartney), who is still active: 

(d/pull db '[:artist/name [:artist/endYear :default 0]] mccartney)

=> {:artist/endYear 0, :artist/name "Paul McCartney"}

The default need not be of the same type as the attribute's values: 

(d/pull db '[:artist/name [:artist/endYear :default "N/A"]] mccartney)

=> {:artist/endYear "N/A", :artist/name "Paul McCartney"}

:xform Option

[attr-name ":xform" symbol]

The :xform option provides the ability to transform the value returned by pull for an attribute.

The fn is either a fully qualified function allowed under the :xforms key the appropriate edition-specific configuration file, or one of the following built-ins:

To use additional xform functions in Cloud follow the instructions for adding :xforms to ion-config.edn. To use additional xform functions in Pro, add the fully qualified function under the :xforms key in resources/datomic/extensions.edn: 

{:xforms [namespace/fn-name ...]}

The fn takes the value returned from the pull expression, which might be nil, and returns a value that will be included in the result instead. The return value needs to be supported by transit (Client API) or fressian (Peer API) without any extension handlers.

:default values are not transformed by :xform, and the :xform result takes precedence.

cancel can be used to cancel xform functions and throw ex-info to the caller.

:xform Option Example

The following example uses the unqualified symbol str (from the default functions) to transform the result of pulling the :artist/endYear for led-zeppelin from an integer to a string: 

(d/pull db '[[:artist/endYear :xform str]] led-zeppelin)

=> {:artist/endYear "1980"}

Wildcards

wildcard           = '*'

The wildcard specification * pulls all attributes of an entity, and recursively pulls any component attributes.

Wildcard Example

The wildcard pulls all the direct attributes of the release. It also recursively pulls :release/media because it is a component attribute. It does not recursively pull :release/artists or :release/country, because those are not component attributes. 

(d/pull db '[*] concert-for-bangla-desh)

=>
{:release/name "The Concert for Bangla Desh",
 :release/artists [{:db/id 17592186049854}],
 :release/country {:db/id 17592186045504},
 :release/gid #uuid "f3bdff34-9a85-4adc-a014-922eef9cdaa5",
 :release/day 20,
 :release/status "Official",
 :release/month 12,
 :release/artistCredit "George Harrison",
 :db/id 17592186072003,
 :release/year 1971,
 :release/media
 [{:db/id 17592186072004,
   :medium/format {:db/id 17592186045741},
   :medium/position 1,
   :medium/trackCount 2,
   :medium/tracks
   [{:db/id 17592186072005,
     :track/duration 376000,
     :track/name "George Harrison / Ravi Shankar Introduction",
     :track/position 1,
     :track/artists [{:db/id 17592186048829} {:db/id 17592186049854}]}
    {:db/id 17592186072006,
     :track/duration 979000,
     :track/name "Bangla Dhun",
     :track/position 2,
     :track/artists [{:db/id 17592186048829}]}]}
  ...
  ]}

Combining Wildcards and Map Specifications

A map specification can be used in conjunction with the wildcard to provide subpatterns for specific attributes.

Combining Wildcards and Map Specifications Example

The wildcard pulls all attributes of the ghost-riders track, and an explicit map uses the value of :track/artists to pull :artist/name. 

(d/pull db '[* {:track/artists [:artist/name]}] ghost-riders)

=>
{:db/id 17592186063810,
 :track/duration 218506,
 :track/name "Ghost Riders in the Sky",
 :track/position 11,
 :track/artists
 [{:artist/name "Bob Dylan"} {:artist/name "George Harrison"}]}

Recursion Limits

recursion-limit    = positive-number | '...'
map-spec           = { ((attr-name | limit-expr) (pattern | recursion-limit))+ }

You can provide a positive number in a map specification to limit how deeply Pull should recur when encountering recursive references. You can optionally provide an ellipsis (…) instead of a number allow recursion to arbitrary depth.

If a recursive subselect encounters an entity that it has already seen, it will not apply the pattern, instead returning only the :db/id of the entity. Thus recursive select is safe in the presence of cycles.

Limited Recursion Example

The following (non-mbrainz) specification will pull the first and last names of friends-of-friends up to six degrees of separation from the original entity. 

[:person/firstName :person/lastName {:person/friends 6}]

Unlimited Recursion Example

The following specification will find all reachable friends, which might be most of the friends in the entire database. 

[:person/firstName :person/lastName {:person/friends ...}]

Empty Results

If there is no match between a pattern and an entity, then pull will return an empty map: 

(d/pull db '[:penguins] led-zeppelin)

=> {}

Non-matching results will be removed entirely from the return map. Even though ghost-riders has artists, none of those artists have :penguins: 

(d/pull db '[{:track/artists [:penguins]}] ghost-riders)

=> {:track/artists []}

Pull Results

Component Defaults

If a pull attr-name names a reference attribute, pull will return a map for the referenced value. If the attribute is a component attribute, the return map will contain all attributes of the related entity as well.

Component Defaults Example

:medium/tracks is a component attribute, so pulling :release/media will also pull related tracks. The example below pulls from dark-side-of-the-moon. 

(d/pull db [:release/media] dark-side-of-the-moon)

=>
{:release/media
 [{:db/id 17592186121277,
   :medium/format {:db/id 17592186045741},
   :medium/position 1,
   :medium/trackCount 10,
   :medium/tracks
   [{:db/id 17592186121278,
     :track/duration 68346,
     :track/name "Speak to Me",
     :track/position 1,
     :track/artists [{:db/id 17592186046909}]}
    {:db/id 17592186121279,
     :track/duration 168720,
     :track/name "Breathe",
     :track/position 2,
     :track/artists [{:db/id 17592186046909}]}
    {:db/id 17592186121280,
     :track/duration 230600,
     :track/name "On the Run",
     :track/position 3,
     :track/artists [{:db/id 17592186046909}]}
    ...]}]}

Non-Component Defaults

If a reference is to a non-component attribute, the default is to pull only the :db/id.

Non-Component Defaults Example

Pulling :artist/_{country} of :country/GB returns only the entity ids for the artists from Great Britain: 

(d/pull db '[:artist/_country] :country/GB)

=> {:artist/_country [{:db/id 17592186045751} {:db/id 17592186045755} ...]}

Multiple Results

If navigating an attribute might lead to more than one value, the pull result will be a list of the values found. These cases include:

  • All forward cardinality-many references
  • Reverse references for non-component attributes.

Multiple Results Example

Pulling [:release/media] of dark-side-of-the-moon pulls the values associated with [:release/media] and from inside of those results. 

(d/pull db '[:release/media] dark-side-of-the-moon)

=> 
{:release/media [{:db/id         23485568369468073
                  :medium/tracks [{:db/id         23485568369468074
                                   :track/artists [{:db/id 22940210601927955}]
                                   ...}]
                  ...}]}

Missing Attributes

In the absence of a default, attribute specifications that do not match an entity are omitted from that entity's result map, rather than e.g. appearing with a nil value.

Missing Attributes Example

Paul McCartney has an :artist/name but not a died-in-1966, so only the former appears in a pull result: 

(d/pull db '[:artist/name :died-in-1966?] mccartney)

=> {:artist/name "Paul McCartney"}

Legacy Attribute Expressions

NOTE: Attributes Specifications provides a superset of the functionality of Attribute Expressions and is preferred, however limit and default Attribute Expressions will continue to be supported. 

attr-expr           = [attr-name attr-option+] | legacy-attr-expr
legacy-attr-expr    = legacy-limit-expr | legacy-default-expr
legacy-limit-expr   = [("limit" | 'limit') attr-name (positive-number | nil)]
legacy-default-expr = [("default" | 'default') attr-name any-value]

Attribute specifications can be wrapped in expressions to control the attribute's default or limit. Each is shown below.

Legacy Limit Expression

legacy-limit-expr   = [("limit" | 'limit') attr-name (positive-number | nil)]

The legacy limit expression is an alternate syntax for Limit Option. Limit Option is preferred.

Legacy Default Expressions

legacy-default-expr = [("default" | 'default') attr-name any-value]

The legacy default expression is an alternate syntax for Default Option. Default Option is preferred.