Add option to store blocks fields as json

[mattiaz9]

Right now blocks are stored in their own tables which for me it's an overkilled feature with some performance issues.

I'm in fact experiencing memory leaks when running a project with a lot of blocks and blocks fields. I believe the problem is caused by drizzle db-push not payload itself, but still having all those tables and relationships can't be good anyway in term of performance.

I'm wondering if you could add the ability to store the blocks data into as a json field.

[izziaraffaele]

I do agree with @mattiaz9. Depending on the use case, the blocks field creates too much tables in the database and a more "compact" approach might be needed.

As a workaround, I'm used to configure the block field as virtual and store/read the value from an hidden json field with hooks. This seems to work but introduces inconsistency in the database if you're using relationship fields inside the block (which for me is acceptable).

const MyCollection = {
  slug: 'collectionWithJsonBlocks',
  fields: [
    { 
      name: "source", 
      type: "json", 
      admin: { hidden: true }, 
      access: { read: () => false },
      hooks: {
        beforeChange: [({ data }) => data?.display],
      }
    },
    { 
      name: "display", 
      type: "blocks",
      virtual: true,
      hooks: {
        afterRead: [({ doc }) => doc?.source],
      }
    },
  ]
}

[mattiaz9]

Interesting. Have you notice some drawbacks in this approach? Also have you tried with localized fields?

[mattiaz9]

This feature has just been implemented #12750 🚀🚀🚀

[notflip]

Are there downsides or things that will work differently with the blocks when using this feature? It would be amazing to not have all these tables/relations.

[izziaraffaele]

Cool! This is amazing, thanks a lot guys 🙏

@mattiaz9 how hard it would be to do the same for the array field?

[mattiaz9]

@notflip I'm testing it in couple of project and so far it's working as expected, also with multiple locales. The only issue is that all the previous blocks are deleted and you have to recreate every block manually.

@izziaraffaele I'm not a maintainer, so I can't answer that. You could try to open a specific discussion about it.

[leonceaklin]

Hey there
Do you know if/when the Cloudflare D1 SQLite driver will support it? The regular SQLite driver seems to have the option already.

[leonceaklin]

Update: This was released with Version 3.60.0 yesterday 🤩