Table Configuration¶

See also

This section describes specifics about how the Declarative system defines Table objects that are to be mapped with the SQLAlchemy ORM. For general information on Table objects see Describing Databases with MetaData.

Table arguments other than the name, metadata, and mapped Column arguments are specified using the __table_args__ class attribute. This attribute accommodates both positional as well as keyword arguments that are normally sent to the Table constructor. The attribute can be specified in one of two forms. One is as a dictionary:

class MyClass(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'sometable'
    __table_args__ = {'mysql_engine':'InnoDB'}

The other, a tuple, where each argument is positional (usually constraints):

class MyClass(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'sometable'
    __table_args__ = (
            ForeignKeyConstraint(['id'], ['remote_table.id']),
            UniqueConstraint('foo'),
            )

Keyword arguments can be specified with the above form by specifying the last argument as a dictionary:

class MyClass(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'sometable'
    __table_args__ = (
            ForeignKeyConstraint(['id'], ['remote_table.id']),
            UniqueConstraint('foo'),
            {'autoload':True}
            )

Using a Hybrid Approach with table¶

As an alternative to __tablename__, a direct Table construct may be used. The Column objects, which in this case require their names, will be added to the mapping just like a regular mapping to a table:

class MyClass(Base):
    __table__ = Table('my_table', Base.metadata,
        Column('id', Integer, primary_key=True),
        Column('name', String(50))
    )

__table__ provides a more focused point of control for establishing table metadata, while still getting most of the benefits of using declarative. An application that uses reflection might want to load table metadata elsewhere and pass it to declarative classes:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base

Base = declarative_base()
Base.metadata.reflect(some_engine)

class User(Base):
    __table__ = metadata.tables['user']

class Address(Base):
    __table__ = metadata.tables['address']

Some configuration schemes may find it more appropriate to use __table__, such as those which already take advantage of the data-driven nature of Table to customize and/or automate schema definition.

Note that when the __table__ approach is used, the object is immediately usable as a plain Table within the class declaration body itself, as a Python class is only another syntactical block. Below this is illustrated by using the id column in the primaryjoin condition of a relationship():

class MyClass(Base):
    __table__ = Table('my_table', Base.metadata,
        Column('id', Integer, primary_key=True),
        Column('name', String(50))
    )

    widgets = relationship(Widget,
                primaryjoin=Widget.myclass_id==__table__.c.id)

Similarly, mapped attributes which refer to __table__ can be placed inline, as below where we assign the name column to the attribute _name, generating a synonym for name:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import synonym_for

class MyClass(Base):
    __table__ = Table('my_table', Base.metadata,
        Column('id', Integer, primary_key=True),
        Column('name', String(50))
    )

    _name = __table__.c.name

    @synonym_for("_name")
    def name(self):
        return "Name: %s" % _name

Using Reflection with Declarative¶

It’s easy to set up a Table that uses autoload=True in conjunction with a mapped class:

class MyClass(Base):
    __table__ = Table('mytable', Base.metadata,
                    autoload=True, autoload_with=some_engine)

However, one improvement that can be made here is to not require the Engine to be available when classes are being first declared. To achieve this, use the DeferredReflection mixin, which sets up mappings only after a special prepare(engine) step is called:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base, DeferredReflection

Base = declarative_base(cls=DeferredReflection)

class Foo(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'foo'
    bars = relationship("Bar")

class Bar(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'bar'

    # illustrate overriding of "bar.foo_id" to have
    # a foreign key constraint otherwise not
    # reflected, such as when using MySQL
    foo_id = Column(Integer, ForeignKey('foo.id'))

Base.prepare(e)

SQLAlchemy 1.4 Documentation

SQLAlchemy 1.4 Documentation

SQLAlchemy ORM

Project Versions

Table Configuration¶

Using a Hybrid Approach with table¶

Using Reflection with Declarative¶

SQLAlchemy 1.4 Documentation

SQLAlchemy 1.4 Documentation

SQLAlchemy ORM

Project Versions

Table Configuration¶

Using a Hybrid Approach with __table__¶

Using Reflection with Declarative¶

Using a Hybrid Approach with table¶