DocumentArray

This is a Document, we already know it can have different data types and a nested structure:

This is a DocumentArray:

A DocumentArray is a list-like container of Document objects. It is the best way to work with multiple Documents.

In a nutshell, you can simply consider it as a Python list, as it implements all list interfaces. That is, if you know how to use Python’s list, you already know how to use DocumentArray.

It is also as powerful as Numpy ndarray and Pandas DataFrame, letting you efficiently access elements and attributes of contained Documents.

DocumentArray’s advanced features make it even more exciting. These features greatly speed up accessing nested elements, evaluating, visualizing, parallel computing, serializing, matching etc.

Finally, if your data is too big to fit in memory, you can simply switch to an on-disk/remote document store. The full API and user experience remain the same. There’s no need to learn anything else.

What’s next?

Let’s see how to construct a DocumentArray in the next section.