How to atomically replace document when it doesn't exists in Rethinkdb >= 1.11

Question

I've updated rethinkdb to 1.11.2 and found backward incompatibility in update/replace commands. In 1.10 both commands command returns proper response

r.db('test').table('user').get("notFound").update({a: 1}) // {"skipped": 1 ,...}
r.db('test').table('user').get("notFound2").replace({a: r.row('a').default(0).add(1)}) // {"inserted": 1 ,...}

but in 1.11.2 fails with an error:

RqlRuntimeError: Expected type OBJECT but found NULL. in:
r.db("test").table("user").get("notFound").update({a: 1})

I want to update a simple document atomically usnig single query (without checking if it exists).

Is there any way to execute the query in in rethinkdb >= 1.11 in the 1.10 way?

Answer 1

Note that I tried this: https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/209 but it threw a Runtime error about expecting an object but getting null. Here's how I did it for my logging table:

r.do(r.db('test').table('log').get('3333'), function(x) {
  return r.branch(
    x.eq(null),
    r.db('test').table('log').insert({id: '3333', log: 'looool', c: 1}),
    r.db('test').table('log').get('3333').update(function(l) { return {c: l('c').add(1)}; })
  )
});

It's a bit verbose, but if the row doesn't exist it adds it, and if the row does exist, it increments its counter.

EDIT: Just upgraded from 1.11.1 to 1.11.3 and the original link works. I can now do:

r.db('test').table('log').get('3333').replace(function(x) {
  return r.branch(
    x.eq(null),
    {id: '3333', log: 'haiii', c: 1},
    x.merge({c: x('c').add(1)})
  )
})

Answer 2

If you are ok with the document being created if it doesn't exist (similar to replace), you can use an upsert. See the upsert example here http://rethinkdb.com/api/javascript/insert/ .

UPDATE: I first thought upsert would behave like update in case the document exist. But it does in fact behave like replace, i.e. removing fields of the existing document if they are not in the one you provide to insert.