# smartdata > Note: Still in Beta smartdata is an ODM that adheres to TypeScript practices and uses classes to organize data. It uses MongoDB as persistent storage. ## Intention There are many ODMs out there, however when we searched for an ODM that uses TypeScript, acts smart while still embracing an the NoSQL idea... we didn't find a matching solution. This is why we started smartdata. How MongoDB terms map to smartdata classes MongoDB term | smartdata class --- | --- Database | smartdata.Db Collection | smartdata.DbCollection Document | smartdata.DbDoc ### class Db represents a Database. Naturally it has .connect() etc. methods on it. Since it is a class you can have multiple DBs defined. ```typescript import * as smartdata from 'smartdata' let myDb1 = new smartdata.Db('someConnectionUrl') let myDb2 = new smartdata.Db('someConnectionUrl') myDb1.connect() myDb2.connect() // continues in next block... ``` ### class DbCollection represents a collection of objects. A collection is defined by the object class (that is extending smartdata.dbdoc) it respresents So to get to get access to a specific collection you document ```typescript // continues from the block before... class myObject extends smartdata.DbDoc { // read the next block about DbDoc property1:string property2:number constructor(optionsArg:{ property1:string, property2:number }) { super(this,myDb1) } } let myCollection = myDb1.getCollectionByName(myObject) ``` > Alert: You NEVER instantiate a collection. This is done for you!!! ### class DbDoc represents a individual document in a collection and thereby is ideally suited to extend the class you want to actually store. DbDoc extends your class with the following methods: * `.save()` will save (or update) the object you call it on only. Any referenced non-savable objects will not get stored. * `.saveDeep()` does the same like `.save()`. In addition it will look for properties that reference an object that extends DbDoc as well and call .saveDeep() on them as well. Loops are prevented So now we can **store** instances of classes to Db... How do we **get** a new class instance from a Doc in the DB? Easy! Take a look at the constructor. When you specify `optionsArg.queryArg` smartdata will fill in the data from the database! But when you specify a `optionsArg.dataArg` instead the data for the class is taken from there :) ## TypeScript How does TypeScript play into this? Since you define your classes in TypeScript and types flow through smartdata in a generic way you should get all the Intellisense and type checking you love when using smartdata. smartdata itself also bundles typings. So you don't need to install any additional types when importing smartdata. [![npm](https://push.rocks/assets/repo-header.svg)](https://push.rocks)