In the world of document-oriented databases there is the notion that documents are ‘schema-less’ because no schema has to be defined and registered with the database before documents can be stored. Sometimes this is also referred to as ‘schema-free’. Let’s investigate this further: does ‘schema-free’ really exist?
JSON
In MongoDB, for example, documents use the JSON (http://www.json.org/) structure (with an extended set of types as defined in BSON http://bsonspec.org/). So all document in the database follow the same underlying data type structure. The database will reject a document that is not JSON/BSON compliant.
Schema Enforcement vs. Schema Freedom
In a relational database the notion of schema means that the database knows about the schema (e.g. structure of a table) and all data stored must follow that structure. The database management system is the enforcing entity of the schema. Data not following the schema will be rejected.
In a document-oriented system like MongoDB the notion of schema is not known to the database and therefore not enforced by the database. Any document can have any structure as long as it is valid according to JSON.
Explicit Schema vs. Implicit Schema
In the case of relational databases, the schema is explicit as it is possible to retrieve the schema as a separate data structure from the database. Relational databases have system tables that contain their schema. So the database is aware of the schema in such a way that it can be retrieved.
In a document-oriented database it is not possible to inquire the schema as it has not been defined to the database. However, it could be the case that all documents follow a schema (that is defined outside the database). If this is the case, the schema of the documents can be called an implicit schema. It is not necessary for the database to enforce a schema for the documents to comply to one.
Schema-less, Schema-free
The fact that a document-oriented database does not enforce a schema of its documents does not mean that there is no schema. It only means that the database does not enforce it. However, it could be enforced elsewhere. For example, the software that writes the documents can enforce their schema. Or the software that reads the documents enforces the schema by only accepting those documents that comply to its expectations.
But what if a user manually defines a documents and stores it?
Individual Schema vs. Global Schema
A different viewpoint is possible. If a user stores a manually designed document then it is possible to view this document of having an individual schema. It is the only one with that schema. If the user now adds a second document that has the exact same structure, then it is possible to view these as two documents with the same implicit schema. At this point there are two documents following the same (implicit) schema. It got a bit more global, tough, as now two documents are following it. If all documents follow the same (implicit) schema, then there is an (implicit) global schema.
Different documents can follow different (implicit) schemas. In the extreme case, all documents are different from each other in their structure and each has its own schema.
Schema Derivation
JSON is a construction principle for hierarchical data structures. Each document following the JSON model is hierarchical and finite as JSON does not support (cyclic) references.
Based on the hierarchical and finite structure of JSON it is possible to derive the implicit schema of the JSON documents and make it explicit. On a very high level, the schema derivation algorithm iterates over all documents in the database and determines the schema for each of it. Documents that follow the same schema are grouped together. After all documents have been inspected, there will be one (and possibly more) schema and the associated complying documents.
Details of this algorithm will be discussed in a different blog at some later time.
Summary
Documents have a schema, there are not schema-less or schema-free. The schema of a document is implicit (and can be made explicit). Several documents can follow the same schema. While the database is not enforcing the schema, it could be enforced by a separate layer outside the database.
So, not-enforcement of a schema by the database != schema-less/schema-free.
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