SQLBoiler

SQLBoiler is a tool to generate a Go data model tailored to your database schema.

It is a "database-first" ORM as opposed to "code-first" (like gorm/gorp). That means you must first create your database schema. Please use something like goose or some other migration tool to manage this part of the database's lifecycle.

Why?

Well...

About SQL Boiler

Features

• Full model generation
• High performance through generation
• Extremely fast code generation
• Uses boil.Executor (simple interface, sql.DB, sqlx.DB etc. compatible)
• Easy workflow (models can always be regenerated, full auto-complete)
• Strongly typed querying (usually no converting or binding to pointers)
• Hooks (Before/After Create/Select/Update/Delete/Upsert)
• Automatic CreatedAt/UpdatedAt
• Relationships/Associations
• Eager loading (recursive)
• Transactions
• Raw SQL fallbacks
• Compatibility tests (Run against your own DB schema)
• Debug logging

Supported Databases

• PostgreSQL

Note: Seeking contributors for other database engines.

A Small Taste

For a comprehensive list of available operations and examples please see Features & Examples.

import (
  // Import this so we don't have to use qm.Limit etc.
  . "github.com/vattle/sqlboiler/boil/qm"
)

// Open handle to database like normal
db, err := sql.Open("postgres", "dbname=fun user=abc")
if err != nil {
  return err
}

// Query all users
users, err := models.Users(db).All()

// Panic-able if you like to code that way
users := models.Users(db).AllP()

// More complex query
users, err := models.Users(db, Where("age > ?", 30), Limit(5), Offset(6)).All()

// Ultra complex query
users, err := models.Users(db,
  Select("id", "name"),
  InnerJoin("credit_cards c on c.user_id = users.id"),
  Where("age > ?", 30),
  AndIn("c.kind in ?", "visa", "mastercard"),
  Or("email like ?", "%aol.com%"),
  GroupBy("id", "name"),
  Having("count(c.id) > ?", 2),
  Limit(5),
  Offset(6),
).All()

// Use any "boil.Executor" implementation (*sql.DB, *sql.Tx, data-dog mock db)
// for any query.
tx, err := db.Begin()
if err != nil {
  return err
}
users, err := models.Users(tx).All()

// Relationships
user, err := models.Users(db).One()
if err != nil {
  return err
}
movies, err := user.FavoriteMovies(db).All()

// Eager loading
users, err := models.Users(db, Load("FavoriteMovies")).All()
if err != nil {
  return err
}
fmt.Println(len(users.R.FavoriteMovies))

Requirements & Pro Tips

Requirements

• Table names and column names should use snake_case format.
  • At the moment we require snake_case table names and column names. This is a recommended default in Postgres. We can reassess this for future database drivers.
• Join tables should use a composite primary key.
  • For join tables to be used transparently for relationships your join table must have a composite primary key that encompasses both foreign table foreign keys. For example, on a join table named user_videos you should have: primary key(user_id, video_id), with both user_id and video_id being foreign key columns to the users and videos tables respectively.

Pro Tips

• Foreign key column names should end with _id.
  • Foreign key column names in the format x_id will generate clearer method names. It is advisable to use this naming convention whenever it makes sense for your database schema.
• If you never plan on using the hooks functionality you can disable generation of this feature using the --no-hooks flag. This will save you some binary size.

Getting started

Download

go get -u -t github.com/vattle/sqlboiler

Configuration

Create a configuration file. Because the project uses viper, TOML, JSON and YAML are all supported. Environment variables are also able to be used. We will assume TOML for the rest of the documentation.

The configuration file should be named sqlboiler.toml and is searched for in the following directories in this order:

• ./
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sqlboiler/
• $HOME/.config/sqlboiler/

We require you pass in the postgres configuration via the configuration file rather than env vars. There is no command line argument support for database configuration. Values given under the postgres block are passed directly to the pq driver. Here is a rundown of all the different values that can go in that section:

Name	Required	Default
dbname	yes	none
host	yes	none
port	no	5432
user	yes	none
pass	no	none
sslmode	no	"require"

You can also pass in these top level configuration values if you would prefer not to pass them through the command line or environment variables:

Name	Default
basedir	none
pkgname	"models"
output	"models"
exclude	[ ]
debug	false
no-hooks	false
no-auto-timestamps	false

Example:

[postgres]
dbname="dbname"
host="localhost"
port=5432
user="dbusername"
pass="dbpassword"

Initial Generation

After creating a configuration file that points at the database we want to generate models for, we can invoke the sqlboiler command line utility.

SQL Boiler generates a Go ORM from template files, tailored to your database schema.
Complete documentation is available at http://github.com/vattle/sqlboiler

Usage:
  sqlboiler [flags] <driver>

Examples:
sqlboiler postgres

Flags:
  -b, --basedir string        The base directory templates and templates_test folders are
  -d, --debug                 Debug mode prints stack traces on error
  -x, --exclude stringSlice   Tables to be excluded from the generated package (default [])
      --no-auto-timestamps    Disable automatic timestamps for created_at/updated_at
      --no-hooks              Disable hooks feature for your models
  -o, --output string         The name of the folder to output to (default "models")
  -p, --pkgname string        The name you wish to assign to your generated package (default "models")

Follow the steps below to do some basic model generation. Once we've generated our models, we can run the compatibility tests which will exercise the entirety of the generated code. This way we can ensure that our database is compatible with sqlboiler. If you find there are some failing tests, please check the Diagnosing Problems section.

# Generate our models and exclude the migrations table
sqlboiler -x goose_migrations postgres

# Run the generated tests
go test ./models # This requires an administrator postgres user because of some
                 # voodoo we do to disable triggers for the generated test db

Diagnosing Problems

The most common causes of problems and panics are:

• Forgetting to exclude tables you do not want included in your generation, like migration tables.
• Tables without a primary key. All tables require one.
• Forgetting foreign key constraints on your columns that reference other tables.
• The compatibility tests that run against your own DB schema require a superuser, ensure the user supplied in your config has adequate privileges.
• A nil or closed database handle. Ensure your passed in boil.Executor is not nil.
  • If you decide to use the G variant of functions instead, make sure you've initialized your global database handle using boil.SetDB().

For errors with other causes, it may be simple to debug yourself by looking at the generated code. Setting boil.DebugMode to true can help with this. You can change the output using boil.DebugWriter (defaults to os.Stdout).

If you're still stuck and/or you think you've found a bug, feel free to leave an issue and we'll do our best to help you.

Features & Examples

Most examples in this section will be demonstrated using the following schema, structs and variables:

CREATE TABLE pilots (
  id integer NOT NULL,
  name text NOT NULL,
);

ALTER TABLE pilots ADD CONSTRAINT pilot_pkey PRIMARY KEY (id);

CREATE TABLE jets (
  id integer NOT NULL,
  pilot_id integer NOT NULL,
  age integer NOT NULL,
  name text NOT NULL,
  color text NOT NULL,
);

ALTER TABLE jets ADD CONSTRAINT jet_pkey PRIMARY KEY (id);
ALTER TABLE jets ADD CONSTRAINT pilots_fkey FOREIGN KEY (pilot_id) REFERENCES pilots(id);

CREATE TABLE languages (
  id integer NOT NULL,
  language text NOT NULL
);

ALTER TABLE languages ADD CONSTRAINT language_pkey PRIMARY KEY (id);

-- Join table
CREATE TABLE pilot_languages (
  pilot_id integer NOT NULL,
  language_id integer NOT NULL
);

-- Composite primary key
ALTER TABLE pilot_languages ADD CONSTRAINT pilot_language_pkey PRIMARY KEY (pilot_id, language_id);
ALTER TABLE pilot_languages ADD CONSTRAINT pilots_fkey FOREIGN KEY (pilot_id) REFERENCES pilots(id);
ALTER TABLE pilot_languages ADD CONSTRAINT languages_fkey FOREIGN KEY (language_id) REFERENCES languages(id);

The generated model structs for this schema look like the following. Note that I've included the relationship structs as well so you can see how it all pieces together, but these are unexported and not something you should ever need to touch directly:

type Pilot struct {
  ID   int    `boil:"id" json:"id" toml:"id" yaml:"id"`
  Name string `boil:"name" json:"name" toml:"name" yaml:"name"`

  R *pilotR `boil:"-" json:"-" toml:"-" yaml:"-"`
}

type pilotR struct {
  Licenses  LicenseSlice
  Languages LanguageSlice
  Jets      JetSlice
}

type Jet struct {
  ID      int    `boil:"id" json:"id" toml:"id" yaml:"id"`
  PilotID int    `boil:"pilot_id" json:"pilot_id" toml:"pilot_id" yaml:"pilot_id"`
  Age     int    `boil:"age" json:"age" toml:"age" yaml:"age"`
  Name    string `boil:"name" json:"name" toml:"name" yaml:"name"`
  Color   string `boil:"color" json:"color" toml:"color" yaml:"color"`

  R *jetR `boil:"-" json:"-" toml:"-" yaml:"-"`
}

type jetR struct {
  Pilot *Pilot
}

type Language struct {
  ID       int    `boil:"id" json:"id" toml:"id" yaml:"id"`
  Language string `boil:"language" json:"language" toml:"language" yaml:"language"`

  R *languageR `boil:"-" json:"-" toml:"-" yaml:"-"`
}

type languageR struct {
  Pilots PilotSlice
}

// Open handle to database like normal
db, err := sql.Open("postgres", "dbname=fun user=abc")
if err != nil {
  return err
}

Automatic CreatedAt/UpdatedAt

If your generated SQLBoiler models package can find columns with the names created_at or updated_at it will automatically set them to time.Now() in your database, and update your object appropriately. To disable this feature use --no-auto-timestamps.

Note: You can set the timezone for this feature by calling boil.SetLocation()

Overriding Automatic Timestamps

• Insert
  • Timestamps for both updated_at and created_at that are zero values will be set automatically.
  • To set the timestamp to null, set Valid to false and Time to a non-zero value. This is somewhat of a work around until we can devise a better solution in a later version.
• Update
  • The updated_at column will always be set to time.Now(). If you need to override this value you will need to fall back to another method in the meantime: boil.SQL(), overriding updated_at in all of your objects using a hook, or create your own wrapper.
• Upsert
  • created_at will be set automatically if it is a zero value, otherwise your supplied value will be used. To set created_at to null, set Valid to false and Time to a non-zero value.
  • The updated_at column will always be set to time.Now().

Query Building

We generate "Starter" methods for you. These methods are named as the plural versions of your model, for example: models.Jets(). Starter methods are used to build queries using our Query Mod System. They take a collection of Query Mods as parameters, and end with a call to a Finisher method.

Here are a few examples:

// SELECT COUNT(*) FROM pilots;
count, err := models.Pilots().Count()

// SELECT * FROM "pilots" LIMIT 5;
pilots, err := models.Pilots(qm.Limit(5)).All()

// DELETE FROM "pilots" WHERE "id"=$1;
err := models.Pilots(qm.Where("id=?", 1)).DeleteAll() 

As you can see, Query Mods allow you to modify your queries, and Finishers allow you to execute the final action.

If you plan on executing the same query with the same values using the query builder, you should do so like the following to utilize caching:

// Instead of this:
for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
   pilots := models.Pilots(qm.Where("id > ?", 5), qm.Limit(5)).All()
}

// You should do this
query := models.Pilots(qm.Where("id > ?", 5), qm.Limit(5))
for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
   pilots := query.All()
}

// Every execution of All() after the first will use a cached version of
// the built query that short circuits the query builder all together.
// This allows you to save on performance.

Query Mod System

The query mod system allows you to modify queries created with Starter methods when performing query building. Here is a list of all of your generated query mods using examples:

// Dot import so we can access query mods directly instead of prefixing with "qm."
import . "github.com/vattle/sqlboiler/boil/qm"

// Use a raw query against a generated struct (Pilot in this example)
// If this query mod exists in your call, it will override the others.
// "?" placeholders are not supported here, use "$1, $2" etc.
SQL("select * from pilots where id=$1", 10)
models.Pilots(SQL("select * from pilots where id=$1", 10)).All()

Select("id", "name") // Select specific columns.
From("pilots as p") // Specify the FROM table manually, can be useful for doing complex queries.

// WHERE clause building
Where("name=?", "John")
And("age=?", 24)
Or("height=?", 183)

// WHERE IN clause building
WhereIn("name, age in ?", "John" 24, "Tim", 33) // Generates: WHERE ("name","age") IN (($1,$2),($3,$4))
AndIn("weight in ?", 84)
OrIn("height in ?", 183, 177, 204)

InnerJoin("pilots p on jets.pilot_id=?", 10)

GroupBy("name")
OrderBy("age, height")

Having("count(jets) > 2")

Limit(15)
Offset(5)

// Explicit locking
For("update nowait")

// Eager Loading -- Load takes the relationship name, ie the struct field name of the 
// Relationship struct field you want to load.
Load("Languages") // If it's a ToOne relationship it's in singular form, ToMany is plural.

Note: We don't force you to break queries apart like this if you don't want to, the following is also valid and supported by query mods that take a clause:

Where("(name=? OR age=?) AND height=?", "John", 24, 183)

Function Variations

You will find that most functions have the following variations. We've used the Delete method to demonstrate:

// Set the global db handle for G method variants.
boil.SetDB(db)

pilot, _ := models.FindPilot(db, 1)

err := pilot.Delete(db) // Regular variant, takes a db handle (boil.Executor interface).
pilot.DeleteP(db)       // Panic variant, takes a db handle and panics on error. 
err := pilot.DeleteG()  // Global variant, uses the globally set db handle (boil.SetDB()).
pilot.DeleteGP()        // Global&Panic variant, combines the global db handle and panic on error.

Note that it's slightly different for query building.

Finishers

Here are a list of all of the finishers that can be used in combination with Query Building.

Finishers all have P (panic) method variations. To specify your db handle use the G or regular variation of the Starter method.

// These are called like the following:
models.Pilots(db).All()

One() // Retrieve one row as object (same as LIMIT(1))
All() // Retrieve all rows as objects (same as SELECT * FROM)
Count() // Number of rows (same as COUNT(*))
UpdateAll(models.M{"name": "John", "age": 23}) // Update all rows matching the built query. 
DeleteAll() // Delete all rows matching the built query.
Exists() // Returns a bool indicating whether the row(s) for the built query exists.
Bind(&myObj) // Bind the results of a query to your own struct object.

Raw Query

We provide boil.SQL() for executing raw queries. Generally you will want to use Bind() with this, like the following:

boil.SQL(db, "select * from pilots where id=$1", 5).Bind(&obj)

You can use your own structs or a generated struct as a parameter to Bind. Bind supports both a single object for single row queries and a slice of objects for multiple row queries.

Binding

Hooks

We support the use of hooks for Before and After query execution. Every generated package that includes hooks has the following HookPoints defined:

const (
  BeforeInsertHook HookPoint = iota + 1
  BeforeUpdateHook
  BeforeDeleteHook
  BeforeUpsertHook
  AfterInsertHook
  AfterSelectHook
  AfterUpdateHook
  AfterDeleteHook
  AfterUpsertHook
)

To register a hook for your model you will need to create the hook function, and attach it with the AddModelHook method. Here is an example of a before insert hook:

// Define my hook function
func myHook(exec boil.Executor, p *Pilot) {
  // Do stuff
}

// Register my before insert hook for pilots
models.AddPilotHook(boil.BeforeInsertHook, myHook)

Your ModelHook will always be defined as func(boil.Executor, *Model)

Please be aware that if your project has no need for hooks they can be disabled on generation using the --no-hooks flag. Doing so will save you some binary size on compilation.

Transactions

Debug Logging

Debug logging will print your generated SQL statement and the arguments it is using. Debug logging can be toggled on globally by setting the following global variable to true:

boil.DebugMode = true

// Optionally set the writer as well. Defaults to os.Stdout
fh, _ := os.Open("debug.txt")
boil.DebugWriter = fh

Note: Debug output is messy at the moment. This is something we want to address.

Select

Select is done through Query Building and Find. Here's a short example:

// Select one pilot
pilot, err := models.Pilots(db, qm.Where("name=?", "Tim")).One()

// Select many jets
jets, err := models.Jets(db, qm.Where("age > ?", 20)).All()

Find

Find is used to find a single row by primary key:

// Retrieve pilot with all columns filled
pilot, err := models.PilotFind(db, 1)

// Retrieve a subset of column values
jet, err := models.JetFind(db, 1, "name", "color")

Insert

The main thing to be aware of with Insert is how the whitelist operates. If no whitelist argument is provided, Insert will abide by the following rules:

• Insert all columns without a default value in the database.
• Insert all columns with a non-zero value in the struct that have a default value in the database.

On the other hand, if a whitelist is provided, we will only insert the columns specified in the whitelist.

Also note that your object will automatically be updated with any missing default values from the database after the Insert is finished executing. This includes auto-incrementing column values.

var p1 models.Pilot
p1.Name = "Larry"
err := p1.Insert(db) // Insert the first pilot with name "Larry"
// p1 now has an ID field set to 1

var p2 models.Pilot
p2.Name "Borris"
err := p2.Insert(db) // Insert the second pilot with name "Borris"
// p2 now has an ID field set to 2

var p3 models.Pilot
p3.ID = 25
p3.Name = "Rupert"
err := p3.Insert(db) // Insert the third pilot with a specific ID
// The id for this row was inserted as 25 in the database.

var p4 models.Pilot
p4.ID = 0
p4.Name = "Nigel"
err := p4.Insert(db, "id", "name") // Insert the fourth pilot with a zero value ID
// The id for this row was inserted as 0 in the database.
// Note: We had to use the whitelist for this, otherwise
// SQLBoiler would presume you wanted to auto-increment

Update

Update can be performed on a single object, a slice of objects or as a Finisher for a collection of rows.

Update on a single object optionally takes a whitelist. The purpose of the whitelist is to specify which columns in your object should be updated in the database.

If no whitelist argument is provided, Update will update every column except for primary key columns.

If a whitelist argument is provided, update will only update the columns specified.

// Find a pilot and update his name
pilot, _ := models.FindPilot(db, 1)
pilot.Name = "Neo"
err := pilot.Update(db)

// Update a slice of pilots to have the name "Smith"
pilots, _ := models.Pilots(db).All()
err := pilots.UpdateAll(db, models.M{"name": "Smith"})

// Update all pilots in the database to to have the name "Smith"
err := models.Pilots(db).UpdateAll(models.M{"name", "Smith"})

Delete

Delete a single object, a slice of objects or specific objects through Query Building.

pilot, _ := models.FindPilot(db, 1)
// Delete the pilot from the database
err := pilot.Delete(db)

// Delete all pilots from the database
err := models.Pilots(db).DeleteAll()

// Delete a slice of pilots from the database
pilots, _ := models.Pilots(db).All()
err := pilots.DeleteAll(db)

Upsert

Upsert allows you to perform an insert that optionally performs an update when a conflict is found against existing row values.

The whitelist operates in the same fashion that it does for Insert.

If an insert is performed, your object will be updated with any missing default values from the database, such as auto-incrementing column values.

var p1 models.Pilot
p1.ID = 5
p1.Name = "Gaben"

// INSERT INTO pilots ("id", "name") VALUES($1, $2) 
// ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING
err := p1.Upsert(db, false, nil, nil)

// INSERT INTO pilots ("id", "name") VALUES ($1, $2) 
// ON CONFLICT ("id") DO UPDATE SET "name" = EXCLUDED."name"
err := p1.Upsert(db, true, []string{"id"}, []string{"name"})

// Set p1.ID to a zero value. We will have to use the whitelist now.
p1.ID = 0
p1.Name = "Hogan"

// INSERT INTO pilots ("id", "name") VALUES ($1, $2) 
// ON CONFLICT ("id") DO UPDATE SET "name" = EXCLUDED."name"
err := p1.Upsert(db, true, []string{"id"}, []string{"name"}, "id", "name")

Reload

In the event that your objects get out of sync with the database for whatever reason, you can use Reload and ReloadAll to reload the objects using the primary key values attached to the objects.

pilot, _ := models.FindPilot(db, 1)

// > Object becomes out of sync for some reason

// Refresh the object with the latest data from the db
err := pilot.Reload(db) 

// Reload all objects in a slice
pilots, _ := models.Pilots(db).All()
err := pilots.ReloadAll(db)

Relationships

relationships to one and to many relationship set ops (to one: set, remove, tomany: add, set, remove) eager loading (nested and flat)

Benchmarks

FAQ

Won't compiling models for a huge database be very slow?

No, because Go's toolchain - unlike traditional toolchains - makes the compiler do most of the work instead of the linker. This means that when the first go install is done it can take a little bit of time because there is a lot of code that is generated. However, because of this work balance between the compiler and linker in Go, linking to that code afterwards in the subsequent compiles is extremely fast.