Atstore

Atstore is a term used in computer science and software development to refer to a generic data storage abstraction organized around location-based addressing. It is not a formal standard; rather, it appears in tutorials, sample libraries, and design discussions as a simplified model for teaching or prototyping storage interfaces.

Conceptually, an atstore provides a mapping from keys to stored values, with keys often expressed as paths or tags that resemble locations in a tree or graph. The 'at' element denotes a location in the store, enabling hierarchical organization and easy scoping of data. Data is typically stored as binary blobs, with optional metadata such as timestamps, schema version, or access controls.

Common operations include put, get, delete, and list or query by prefix. A typical implementation may be in-memory, on-disk, or distributed, and can support features such as immutability, versioning, or simple replication. Because atstore is a didactic construct, actual production use often relies on a full-featured database or storage system rather than the bare abstraction.

Relation to other concepts: It shares ideas with key-value stores, object stores, and hierarchical file systems, while differing in the emphasis on path-like addressing and slim operation surface.

History: The term has appeared in various teaching materials since the early days of practical data storage discussions and remains a general-purpose model rather than a single project.