Typing

This is the official documentation of the @forestadmin/agent Node.js agent.

Fields on Forest Admin can either use Primitive Types or Composite Types.

Primitive types

The primitive types which are supported by Forest Admin are the following:

Forest Admin Type	Language Type
Boolean	Boolean
Date	String with format "1985-10-26T01:22:00-08:00Z" (ISO-8601)
Dateonly	String with format "1985-10-26"
Enum	String
JSON	Any JSON compatible value
Number	Number
Point	Array of 2 Numbers
String	String
Timeonly	String with format "01:22:00"
Uuid	String with uuid v4 format

Composite types

• Fields using composite types are not sortable and do not implement validation.

• Fields that are an array of a primitive type only are filterable (depending on the data source).

// Object containing 2 strings
const typeOfObjectWithTwoStrings = { firstName: 'String', lastName: 'String' };

// Array of strings
const typeOfArrayOfStrings = ['String'];

// Array of objects
const typeOfArrayOfObjects = [{ content: 'String' }];

// Object containing a 2d-grid of numbers
const typeOfObjectContainingAGridOfNumbers = { content: [['Number']] };

When using composite types, the data in the UI may not be displayed as you expect!

Composite Type	Example	How it gets displayed
Array of primitive type	[ 'array', 'of', 'strings']	As a custom widget in the edition form
Object	{ title: "the godfather"}	As a nested form in the edition form
Array of object	[{ title: "the shawshank redemption"}]	As a new collection in Related Data section
Array of object (with nested objects)	[{ rating: { kind: 'MPA", value: "PG-13" } }]	JSON editor in the edition form
Anything else		JSON editor in the edition form

If you want to force displaying your data as a new Collection in the Related Data section, but can't because your data model contains nested objects, you may consider typing all nested objects as 'JSON'.