Modeling items and categories

[Mircea Chirea]

I have this problem on my mind. Suppose I have items and categories; items belong in categories. I most commonly need to access a list of all categories and a list of all items that belong in some categories. How should I model this into the documents?

Category

{

   string Id;

   string Name;

   string[] Items; 

   // etc.

}

Item

{

    string Id;

    string Name;

    // etc.

}

or this way

Category

{

   string Id;

   string Name;

   // etc.

}

Item

{

    string Id;

    string Name;

    string[] Categories;

    // etc.

}

As in, either a category has a list of items, or an item has a list of all categories. 

[Itamar Syn-Hershko]

Is the list of categories hierarchical? and when you need the list of all categories, do you need the rest of the data attached to it?

The second approach is going to be easier to work with. You can then get the list of all (used) categories directly from your index. If there is no hierarchy involved, you can maintain a collection of Category documents too. If there is hierarchy, you probably want to have one large document with all the categories - at least their IDs.

[Mircea Chirea]

The categories are stand-alone, basically groups. Typically when I need the categories I need the data about them too (like name and whatever), to display a list.