String field type in Cerial — plain text values for names, descriptions, and any textual content.

The String field type represents plain text. It's the most common field type in Cerial, used for names, descriptions, labels, and any free-form textual content.

Schema Syntax

model User {
  id Record @id
  name String
  bio String?
  title String @default("Untitled")
  tags String[]
}

Types

Direction	Type
Output	`string`
Input	`string`
SurrealDB	`string`

Create & Update

const user = await client.db.User.create({
  data: {
    name: 'Alice',
    bio: 'Software engineer',
    tags: ['typescript', 'surrealdb'],
  },
});

console.log(user.name);   // 'Alice'
console.log(user.title);  // 'Untitled' (from @default)

// Update
await client.db.User.updateUnique({
  where: { id: user.id },
  data: { bio: 'Senior software engineer' },
});

Filtering

String fields support equality checks, set membership, and substring matching:

// Exact match
const alice = await client.db.User.findMany({
  where: { name: { eq: 'Alice' } },
});

// Substring
const engineers = await client.db.User.findMany({
  where: { bio: { contains: 'engineer' } },
});

// Prefix
const aNames = await client.db.User.findMany({
  where: { name: { startsWith: 'A' } },
});

// Set
const specific = await client.db.User.findMany({
  where: { name: { in: ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carol'] } },
});

Available Operators

Operator	Description
`eq`	Equal to
`neq`	Not equal to
`in`	In a set of values
`notIn`	Not in a set of values
`contains`	Contains substring
`startsWith`	Starts with prefix
`endsWith`	Ends with suffix

Conditional Operators

Operator	Available when	Description
`not`	`?` or `@nullable`	Negated comparison
`isNone`	`?` (optional)	`true` = field is absent
`isNull`	`@nullable`	`true` = field is `null`
`isDefined`	Always	`true` = field exists

OrderBy

String fields support orderBy:

const sorted = await client.db.User.findMany({
  orderBy: { name: 'asc' },
});

In Objects and Tuples

object Address {
  street String
  city String
  zip String
}

tuple FullName {
  first String,
  last String
}

model Contact {
  id Record @id
  address Address
  fullName FullName
}

const contact = await client.db.Contact.create({
  data: {
    address: { street: '123 Main St', city: 'Springfield', zip: '62704' },
    fullName: ['Jane', 'Doe'],
  },
});

contact.address.city;   // 'Springfield'
contact.fullName[0];    // 'Jane'

Arrays

model Article {
  id Record @id
  keywords String[]
  uniqueTags String[] @set
}

String arrays support @set for auto-deduplicated, sorted arrays. They also support @distinct and @sort decorators.

Supported Decorators

Decorator	Effect
`@default(value)`	Default value on create
`@defaultAlways(value)`	Reset to value on every write
`@nullable`	Allow explicit `null`
`@readonly`	Write-once field
`@index`	Database index
`@unique`	Unique constraint

String

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