gino-enum-tables 1.0.7
Support for storing enum values in a table instead of a type
License: Apache-2.0
Keywords: enum,table,type,orm,sqlalchemy,python3

GINO Enumeration Tables
====================================

This is a port of `SqlAlchemy Enum Tables <https://git.heptacle.fr/neshiraini/sqlalchemy-enum-tables>`__ to support `GINO orm <https://github.com/python-gino/gino>`__

SQLAlchemy has built-in ``enum.Enum`` support,
via its column type ``sqlalchemy.Enum``.
However, this type relies either on the backend's enum type,
or on a check constraints. Both of these are immutable objects,
which are a pain in the butt to modify
(only PostgreSQL supports adding values to an enum type,
and even then it doesn't support removing them).

Another often-used pattern to support enums in a database
is via a dedicated table that reflects the enum values.
This requires updating the table everytime the enum is modified,
but doing so is much simpler than replacing a type.

This package allows you to create the enum table,
and columns referencing that table, directly from
a Python enum class. It also interfaces with Alembic
to automatically add ``INSERT`` and ``DELETE`` statements
to your autogenerated migration scripts.

When to use
-----------

1. Only works with Pythons's enumeration classes,
   or at least one with a behavior similar to ``enum.Enum``.
   Does not work with collections of arbitrary entries.
2. Better used for frequently updated enumeration classes.
3. **Do not** use with another package that provides
   ``op.enum_insert`` and ``op.enum_delete`` operations in Alembic.

Installation
------------
::

    pip install gino-enum-tables

How to use with GINO
----------------------

::

    import enum

    # Gino instance
    from . import db

    import enumtables as et

    # Create the Python enumeration class
    class MyEnum(enum.Enum):
        HELLO = "HELLO"
        WORLD = "WORLD"

    # Create the enumeration table
    # Pass your enum class and the GINO base model to enumtables.EnumTable
    MyEnumTable = et.EnumTable(MyEnum, db.Model)

    # Create a model class that uses the enum
    class MyModel(Base):
        __tablename__ = "my_model"
        # Pass the enum table (not the enum class) to enumtables.EnumType
        # Add the foreign key to the enum table
        enum_value = db.Column(et.EnumType(MyEnumTable), db.ForeignKey('my_enum_table.item_id') primary_key = True)

        # When valued (on an instance of MyModel), enum_value will be an instance of MyEnum.

First, the ``EnumTable`` factory takes the enum class and the base GINO model class
to create the actual ORM class. Then this ORM class is passed to the ``EnumType`` custom type class, along with a ForeignKey to the enum table,
to create the SQLAlchemy column linked to the enum table.
The column behaves just as if it had SqlAlchemy's own ``Enum`` type.

Note that the ForeignKey points to 'my_enum_table.item_id'. If the tablename argument isn't passed to EnumTable, the table name is created from the Enum name by doing a camelCase to snake_case conversion. 'item_id' is the primary key of the enum table (my_enum_table) holding enum values.

On the implementation side, ``EnumTable`` is not a class,
it's a factory function that performs Python black magic
to create a subclass of the declarative base, and set it up to be a DB table
containing the enum items (actually it just has one column ``item_id`` of type String).

How to use with Alembic
-----------------------

First add::

    from enumtables import alembic_ops

at the begining of your ``env.py`` file,
then add the same line in the imports of your ``script.py.mako`` file.
The package uses Alembic's standard hooks to take care of migration generation.

Don't forget to review the migrations afterwards.
Especially make sure that, if the table did not exist before,
the ``op.enum_insert`` commands are located *after* the corresponding ``op.create_table`` command.

Other uses
-----------

Using the enum table class directly
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The enum table class behaves like any SqlAlchemy ORM class::

    enum_query = session.query(MyEnumTable)
    result = enum_query.first()

    # The column item_id stores the name of the enum item as a string
    enum_name = result.item_id

Adding more columns to the enum tables
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Any keyword argument passed to the ``EnumTable`` factory becomes a member of the table class.
Which means, you can pass anything (like a column) exactly as you would defined a usual ORM class::

    BetterEnumTable = et.EnumTable(
        MyEnum,
		Base,

        # tablename is turned into __tablename__
        tablename = "better_enum",

        # Let's add a new column!
        order = sa.Column(sa.Integer, nullable = False),

        # And since it's an ordering number, let's make it unique too.
        __table_args__ = (
            sa.UniqueConstraint('order'),
        ),
    )