User Relations Basics

Introduction

Skygear provide three default relations: friend, following and follower.

• follower and following are one non-mutual relation with direction. You can follow a user without his explicit approval.
• friend is mutual relation without direction. If you add Ben as your friend and Ben add you as his friend, then you two will have friend relationship.

Adding Relations

If the current user wants to follow Ben:

const toFollow = new skygear.Following([ben]);
// ben is a user object
skygear.relation.add(toFollow).then((result) => {
  console.log(result);
}, (error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

The result variable you get in the callback function is a RelationResult instance that have the following keys/attributes:

• result.success is an array of user objects with whom relations are added
• result.fail is an array of user objects with whom relations fail to be added
• result.partialError is a boolean that equals true when some relations are added while others fail to be added

How can you get the user object? You can either search by email or simply construct a new user object with the correct user id. Read the section about Users to learn more about searching by email.

const ben = new skygear.User({
  user_id: "<ben's-user-id>",
});

If the current user wants to add friend with Ben:

const beFriend = new skygear.Friend([ben]);
skygear.relation.add(beFriend).then(...);

Querying Relations

You may query the relations of the current user or other users.

To get Ben's follower list:

skygear.relation.queryFollower(ben).then((users) => {
  console.log(users);
}, (error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

To get the current user's friend list:

skygear.relation.queryFriend(skygear.auth.currentUser).then(...);

To get the current user's following list:

skygear.relation.queryFollowing(skygear.auth.currentUser).then(...);

To get the 101-200th friends of the current user:

skygear.relation.queryFriend(skygear.auth.currentUser, {
  page: 2, limit: 100,
}).then((users) => {
  console.log(users);
}, (error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

Alternatively you can use the query syntax if you want more conditions. Learn more in the Queries section.

const query = new skygear.relation.Query(skygear.relation.Friend);
query.user = skygear.auth.currentUser;
query.limit = 10;
query.page = 2;
query.greaterThan('age', 20);
skygear.relation.query(query).then((users) => {
  console.log(users.overallCount);
  // The total count matching the relation regardless of page or limit
}, (error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

Removing Relations

const unFollow = new skygear.relation.Follower([ben]);
skygear.relation.remove(unFollow).then((result) => {
  console.log(result.success);
  // an array with one element: user ID of ben
}, (error) => {
  console.error(error);
});