Models

Models

Models are the easiest way to interact with your tables. A model is a way for you to interact with a Python class in a simple and elegant way and have all the hard overhead stuff handled for you under the hood. A model can be used to query the data in the table or even create new records, fetch related records between tables and many other features.

Creating A Model

The first step in using models is actually creating them. You can scaffold out a model by using the command:

$ python masonite-orm model Post

You can use the --directory flag to specify the location of these models

This will create a post model like so:

from masoniteorm.models import Model

class Post(Model):
    """Post Model"""
    pass

From here you can do as basic or advanced queries as you want. You may need to configure your model based on your needs, though.

From here you can start querying your records:

user = User.first()
users = User.all()
active_users = User.where('active', 1).first()

We'll talk more about setting up your model below

Conventions And Configuration

Masonite ORM makes a few assumptions in order to have the easiest interface for your models.

The first is table names. Table names are assumed to be the plural of your model name. If you have a User model then the users table is assumed and if you have a model like Company then the companies table is assumed. You can realize that Masonite ORM is smart enough to know that the plural of Company is not Companys so don't worry about Masonite not being able to pick up your table name.

Table Name

If your table name is something other than the plural of your models you can change it using the __table__ attribute:

class Clients:
  __table__ = "users"

Primary Keys

The next thing Masonite assumes is the primary key. Masonite ORM assumes that the primary key name is id. You can change the primary key name easily:

class Clients:
  __primary_key__ = "user_id"

Connections

The next thing Masonite assumes is that you are using the default connection you setup in your configuration settings. You can also change this on the model:

class Clients:
  __connection__ = "staging"

Mass Assignment

By default, Masonite ORM protects against mass assignment to help prevent users from changing values on your tables you didn't want.

This is used in the create and update methods. You can set the columns you want to be mass assignable easily:

class Clients:
  __fillable__ = ["email", "active", "password"]

Guarded attributes can be used to specify those columns which are not mass assignable. You can prevent some of the fields from being mass-assigned:

class Clients:
  __guarded__ = ["password"]

Timestamps

Masonite also assumes you have created_at and updated_at columns on your table. You can easily disable this behavior:

class Clients:
  __timestamps__ = False

Timezones

Models use UTC as the default timezone. You can change the timezones on your models using the __timezone__ attribute:

class User(Model):
    __timezone__ = "Europe/Paris"

Querying

Almost all of a model's querying methods are passed off to the query builder. If you would like to see all the methods available for the query builder, see the QueryBuilder documentation here.

Single results

A query result will either have 1 or more records. If your model result has a single record then the result will be the model instance. You can then access attributes on that model instance. Here's an example:

from app.models.User import User

user = User.first()
user.name #== 'Joe'
user.email #== 'joe@masoniteproject.com'

You can also get a record by its primary key:

from app.models.User import User

user = User.find(1)
user.name #== 'Joe'
user.email #== 'joe@masoniteproject.com'

Collections

If your model result returns several results then it will be wrapped in a collection instance which you can use to iterate over:

from app.models.User import User

users = User.where('active', 1).get()
for user in users:
  user.name #== 'Joe'
  user.active #== '1'
  user.email #== 'joe@masoniteproject.com'

If you want to find a collection of records based on the models primary key you can pass a list to the find method:

users = User.find([1,2,3])
for users in users:
  user.name #== 'Joe'
  user.active #== '1'
  user.email #== 'joe@masoniteproject.com'

The collection class also has some handy methods you can use to interact with your data:

user_emails = User.where('active', 1).get().pluck('email') #== Collection of email addresses

If you would like to see more methods available like pluck be sure to read the Collections documentation.

Deleting

You may also quickly delete records:

from app.models.User import User

user = User.delete(1)

This will delete the record based on the primary key value of 1.

You can also delete based on a query:

from app.models.User import User

user = User.where('active', 0).delete()

Sub-queries

You may also use sub-queries to do more advanced queries using lambda expressions:

from app.models.User import User

users = User.where(lambda q: q.where('active', 1).where_null('deleted_at'))
# == SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE (`active` = '1' AND `deleted_at` IS NULL)

Selecting

By default, Masonite ORM performs SELECT * queries. You can change this behavior in a few ways.

The first way is to specify a __selects__ attribute with a list of column names. You may use the as keyword to alias your columns directly from this list:

class Store(Model):
    __selects__ = ["username", "administrator as is_admin"]

Now when you query your model, these selects will automatically be included:

store.all() 
#== SELECT `username`, `administrator` as is_admin FROM `users`

Another way is directly on the all() method:

store.all(["username", "administrator as is_admin"]) 
#== SELECT `username`, `administrator` as is_admin FROM `users`

This will also work on the get method as well:

store.where("active", 1).get(["username", "administrator as is_admin"]) 
#== SELECT `username`, `administrator` as is_admin FROM `users` WHERE `active` = 1

Relationships

Another great feature, when using models, is to be able to relate several models together (like how tables can relate to each other).

Belongs To (One to One)

A belongs to relationship is a one-to-one relationship between 2 table records.

You can add a one-to-one relationship easily:

from masoniteorm.relationships import belongs_to
class User:

  @belongs_to
  def company(self):
    from app.models.Company import Company
    return Company

It will be assumed here that the primary key of the relationship here between users and companies is id -> {method_name}_id. You can change the relating columns if that is not the case:

from masoniteorm.relationships import belongs_to
class User:

  @belongs_to('primary_key_id', 'user_id')
  def company(self):
    from app.models.Company import Company
    return Company

The first argument is always the column name on the current model's table and the second argument is the related field on the other table.

Has One (One to One)

In addition to belongs to, you can define the inverse of a belongs to:

from masoniteorm.relationships import has_one
class User:

  @has_one
  def company(self):
    from app.models.Company import Company
    return Company

Note the keys here are flipped. This is the only relationship that has the keys reversed

from masoniteorm.relationships import has_one
class User:

  @has_one('other_key', 'local_key')
  def company(self):
    from app.models.Company import Company
    return Company

Has Many (One to Many)

Another relationship is a one-to-many relationship where a record relates to many records, in another table:

from masoniteorm.relationships import has_many
class User:

  @has_many('company_id', 'id')
  def posts(self):
    from app.models.Post import Post
    return Post

The first argument is always the column name on the current model's table and the second argument is the related field on the other table.

Has Many (Many To Many)

When working with many to many relationships, there is a pivot table in between that we must account for. Masonite ORM will handle this pivot table for you entirely under the hood.

In a real world situation you may have a scenario where you have products and stores.

Stores can have many products and also products can be in many stores. For example, a store can sell a red shirt and a red shirt can be sold in many different stores.

In the database this may look something like this:

stores
-------
id
name

product_store
--------------
id
store_id
product_id

product
--------
id
name

Notice that there is a pivot table called product_store that is in between stores and products.

We can use the belongs_to_many relationship to get all the products of a store easily. Let's start with the Store model:

from masoniteorm.models import Model
from masoniteorm.relationships import belongs_to_many
class Store(Model):

  @belongs_to_many
  def products(self):
    from app.models.Product import Product
    return Product

We can change the signature of the decorator to specify our foreign keys. In our example this would look like this:

from masoniteorm.models import Model
from masoniteorm.relationships import belongs_to_many
class Store(Model):

  @belongs_to_many("store_id", "product_id", "id", "id")
  def products(self):
    from app.models.Product import Product
    return Product

The first 2 keys are the foreign keys relating from stores to products through the pivot table and the last 2 keys are the foreign keys on the stores and products table.

If there are additional fields on your pivot table you need to fetch you can add the extra fields to the pivot record like so:

@belongs_to_many("store_id", "product_id", "id", "id", extra_fields=['is_active'])
  def products(self):
    from app.models.Product import Product
    return Product

This will fetch the additional fields on the pivot table which we have access to.

Once we create this relationship we can start querying from stores directly to products:

store = Store.find(1)
for product in store.products:
    product.name #== Red Shirt

On each fetched record you can also get the pivot table and perform queries on it. This pivot record is the joining record inside the pivot table (product_store) where the store id and the product ID match. By default this attribute is pivot.

store = Store.find(1)
for product in store.products:
    product.pivot.updated_at #== 2021-01-01
    product.pivot.update({"updated_at": "2021-01-02"})

Changing Options

There are quite a few defaults that are created but there are ways to override them.

The first default is that the pivot table has a primary key called id. This is used to hydrate the record so you can update the pivot records. If you do not have a pivot primary key you can turn this feature off:

@belongs_to_many(pivot_id=None)

You can also change the ID to something other than id:

@belongs_to_many(pivot_id="other_column")

The next default is the name of the pivot table. The name of the pivot table is the singular form of both table names in alphabetical order. For example, if you are pivoting a persons table and a houses table then the table name is assumed to be house_person. You can change this naming:

@belongs_to_many(table="home_ownership")

The next default is that there are no timestamps (updated_at and created_at) on your pivot table. If you would like Masonite to manage timestamps you can:

@belongs_to_many(with_timestamps=True)

The next default is that the pivot attribute on your model will be called pivot. You can change this:

@belongs_to_many(attribute="ownerships")

Now when you need to get the pivot relationship you can do this through:

store = Store.find(1)
for product in store.products:
    product.ownerships.updated_at #== 2021-01-01
    product.ownerships.update({"updated_at": "2021-01-02"})

If you have timestamps on your pivot table, they must be called created_at and updated_at.

Using Relationships

You can easily use relationships to get those related records. Here is an example on how to get the company record:

user = User.first()
user.company #== <app.models.Company>
user.company.name #== Masonite X Inc.

for post in user.posts:
    post.title

With Count

The with_count method can be used to get the number of records in a relationship.

If you want to fetch the number of permissions a role has for example:

Role.with_count('permissions').get()

This will return a collection on each record with the {relationship}_count attribute. You can get this attribute like this:

roles = Role.with_count('permissions').get()
for role in roles:
  role.permissions_count #== 7

The method also works for single records

roles = Role.with_count('permissions').find(1).permissions_count #== 7

You may also optionally pass in a lambda function as a callable to pass in an additional query filter against the relationship

Role.with_count(
    'permissions',
    lambda q: (
        q.where_like("name", "%Creates%")
     )

Eager Loading

You can eager load any related records. Eager loading is when you preload model results instead of calling the database each time.

Let's take the example of fetching a user's phone:

users = User.all()
for user in users:
    user.phone

This will result in the query:

SELECT * FROM users
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 1
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 2
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 3
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 4
...

This will result in a lot of database calls. Now let's take a look at the same example but with eager loading:

users = User.with_('phone').get()
for user in users:
    user.phone

This would now result in this query:

SELECT * FROM users
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id IN (1, 2, 3, 4)

This resulted in only 2 queries. Any subsquent calls will pull in the result from the eager loaded result set.

You can also default all model calls with eager loading by using the __with__ attribute on the model:

from masoniteorm.models import Model
from masoniteorm.relationships import belongs_to_many
class Store(Model):

  __with__ = ['products']

  @belongs_to_many
  def products(self):
    from app.models.Product import Product
    return Product

Nested Eager Loading

You may also eager load multiple relationships. Let's take another more advanced example...

Let's say you would like to get a user's phone as well as their contacts. The code would look like this:

users = User.all()
for user in users:
    for contact in user.phone:
        contact.name

This would result in the query:

SELECT * FROM users
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 1
SELECT * from contacts where phone_id = 30
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 2
SELECT * from contacts where phone_id = 31
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 3
SELECT * from contacts where phone_id = 32
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id = 4
SELECT * from contacts where phone_id = 33
...

You can see how this can get pretty large as we are looping through hundreds of users.

We can use nested eager loading to solve this by specifying the chain of relationships using . notation:

users = User.with_('phone.contacts').all()
for user in users:
    for contact in user.phone:
        contact.name

This would now result in the query:

SELECT * FROM users
SELECT * FROM phones where user_id IN (1,2,3,4)
SELECT * from contacts where phone_id IN (30, 31, 32, 33)

You can see how this would result in 3 queries no matter how many users you had.

Joining

If you have relationships on your models you can easily join them:

If you have a model that like this:

from masoniteorm.relationships import has_many
class User:

  @has_many('company_id', 'id')
  def posts(self):
    from app.models.Post import Post
    return Post

You can use the joins method:

User.joins('posts')

This will build out the join method.

You can also specify the clause of the join (inner, left, right). The default is an inner join

User.joins('posts', clause="right")

Additionally if you want to specify additional where clauses you can use the join_on method:

User.join_on('posts', lambda q: (
  q.where('active', 1)
))

Scopes

Scopes are a way to take common queries you may be doing and condense them into a method where you can then chain onto them. Let's say you are doing a query like getting the active user frequently:

user = User.where('active', 1).get()

We can take this query and add it as a scope:

from masoniteorm.scopes import scope
class User(Model):

  @scope
  def active(self, query):
    return query.where('active', 1)

Now we can simply call the active method:

user = User.active().get()

You may also pass in arguments:

from masoniteorm.scopes import scope
class User(Model):

  @scope
  def active(self, query, active_or_inactive):
    return query.where('active', active_or_inactive)

then pass an argument to it:

user = User.active(1).get()
user = User.active(0).get()

Soft Deleting

Masonite ORM also comes with a global scope to enable soft deleting for your models.

Simply inherit the SoftDeletesMixin scope class:

from masoniteorm.scopes import SoftDeletesMixin

class User(Model, SoftDeletesMixin):
  # ..

Now whenever you delete a record, instead of deleting it it will update the deleted_at record from the table to the current timestamp:

User.delete(1)
# == UPDATE `users` SET `deleted_at` = '2020-01-01 10:00:00' WHERE `id` = 1

When you fetch records it will also only fetch undeleted records:

User.all() #== SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `deleted_at` IS NULL

You can disable this behavior as well:

User.with_trashed().all() #== SELECT * FROM `users`

You can also get only the deleted records:

User.only_trashed().all() #== SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `deleted_at` IS NOT NULL

You can also restore records:

User.where('admin', 1).restore() #== UPDATE `users` SET `deleted_at` = NULL WHERE `admin` = '1'

Lastly, you can override this behavior and force the delete query:

User.where('admin', 1).force_delete() #== DELETE FROM `users` WHERE `admin` = '1'

There is also a soft_deletes() helper that you can use in migrations to add this field quickly.

# user migrations
with self.schema.create("users") as table:
  # ...
  table.soft_deletes()

If the column name is not called deleted_at you can change the column to a different name:

from masoniteorm.scopes import SoftDeletesMixin

class User(Model, SoftDeletesMixin):
  __deleted_at__ = "when_deleted"

Truncating

You can truncate the table used by the model directly on the model:

User.truncate()

Updating

You can update records:

User.find(1).update({"username": "Joe"}, {'active': 1})

When updating a record, only attributes which have changes are applied. If there are no changes, update won't be triggered.

You can override this behaviour in different ways:

• you can pass force=True to update() method

User.find(1).update({"username": "Joe"}, force=True)

• you can define __force_update__ attribute on the model class

class User(Model):
    __force_update__ = True

User.find(1).update({"username": "Joe"})

• you can use force_update() method on model:

User.find(1).force_update({"username": "Joe"})

You can also update or create records as well:

User.update_or_create({"username": "Joe"}, {
    'active': 1
})

If there is a record with the username of "Joe" it will update that record or, if not present, it will create the record.

Note that when the record is created, the two dictionaries will be merged together. So if this code was to create a record it would create a record with both the username of Joe and active of 1.

When updating records the updated_at column will be automatically updated. You can control this behaviour by using activate_timestamps method:

User.activate_timestamps(False).update({"username": "Sam"})  # updated_at won't be modified during this update

Creating

You can easily create records by passing in a dictionary:

User.create({"username": "Joe"})

This will insert the record into the table, create and return the new model instance.

Note that this will only create a new model instance but will not contain any additional fields on the table. It will only have whichever fields you pass to it.

You can "refetch" the model after creating to get the rest of the record. This will use the find method to get the full record. Let's say you have a scenario in which the active flag defaults to 1 from the database level. If we create the record, the active attribute will not fetched since Masonite ORM doesn't know about this attribute.

In this case we can refetch the record using .fresh() after create:

user = User.create({"username": "Joe"}).fresh()

user.active #== 1

Bulk Creating

You can also bulk create using the query builder's bulk_create method:

User.bulk_create([
  {"username": "Joe"},
  {"username": "John"},
  {"username": "Bill"},
  {"username": "Nick"},
])

This will return a collection of users that have been created.

Since hydrating all the models involved in a bulk create, this could be much slower when working with a lot of records. If you are working with a lot of records then using the query builder directly without model hydrating will be faster. You can do this by getting a "new" query builder and call any required methods off that:

User.builder.new().bulk_create([
  {"username": "Joe"},
  {"username": "John"},
  {"username": "Bill"},
  {"username": "Nick"},
])

Serializing

You can serialize a model very quickly:

User.serialize()
# returns {'id': 1, 'account_id': 1, 'first_name': 'John', 'last_name': 'Doe', 'email': 'johndoe@example.com', 'password': '$2b$12$pToeQW/1qs26CCozNiAfNugRRBNjhPvtIw86dvfJ0FDNcTDUNt3TW', 'created_at': '2021-01-03T11:35:48+00:00', 'updated_at': '2021-01-08T22:06:48+00:00' }

This will return a dict of all the model fields. Some important things to note:

• Date fields will be serialized with ISO format

• Eager loaded relationships will be serialized

• Attributes defined in __appends__ will be added

If you want to hide model fields you can use __hidden__ attribute on your model:

# User.py
class User(Model):
  # ...
  __hidden__ = ["password", "created_at"]

In the same way you can use __visible__ attribute on your model to explicitly tell which fields should be included in serialization:

# User.py
class User(Model):
  # ...
  __visible__ = ["id", "name", "email"]

If you need more advanced serialization or building a complex API you should use masonite-api package.

Changing Primary Key to use UUID

Masonite ORM also comes with another global scope to enable using UUID as primary keys for your models.

Simply inherit the UUIDPrimaryKeyMixin scope:

from masoniteorm.scopes import UUIDPrimaryKeyMixin

class User(Model, UUIDPrimaryKeyMixin):
  # ..

You can also define a UUID column with the correct primary constraint in a migration file

with self.schema.create("users") as table:
    table.uuid('id')
    table.primary('id')

Your model is now set to use UUID as a primary key. It will be automatically generated at creation.

You can change UUID version standard you want to use:

import uuid
from masoniteorm.scopes import UUIDPrimaryKeyMixin

class User(Model, UUIDPrimaryKeyMixin):
  __uuid_version__ = 3
  # the two following parameters are only needed for UUID 3 and 5
  __uuid_namespace__ = uuid.NAMESPACE_DNS
  __uuid_name__ = "domain.com

Casting

Not all data may be in the format you need it. If you find yourself casting attributes to different values, like casting active to an int then you can set it to the right type in the model:

class User(Model):
  __casts__ = {"active": "int"}

Now whenever you get the active attribute on the model it will be an int.

Other valid values are:

• int

• bool

• json

Dates

Masonite uses pendulum for dates. Whenever dates are used it will return an instance of pendulum.

You can specify which fields are dates on your model. This will be used for serializing and other logic requirements:

class User(Model):

    __dates__ = ["verified_at"]

Overriding Dates

If you would like to change this behavior you can override 2 methods: get_new_date() and get_new_datetime_string():

The get_new_date() method accepts 1 parameter which is an instance of datetime.datetime. You can use this to parse and return whichever dates you would like.

class User(Model):

    def get_new_date(self, datetime=None):
        # return new instance from datetime instance.

If the datetime parameter is None then you should return the current date.

The get_new_datetime_string() method takes the same datetime parameter but this time should return a string to be used in a table.

class User(Model):

    def get_new_datetime_string(self, datetime=None):
        return self.get_new_date(datetime).to_datetime_string()

Accessors and Mutators (Getter and Setter)

Accessors and mutators are a great way to fine tune what happens when you get and set attributes on your models.

To create an accessor we just need to create a method in the get_{name}_attribute method name:

class User:

    def get_name_attribute(self):
        return self.first_name + ' ' + self.last_name

user = User.find(1)
user.first_name #== "Joe"
user.last_name #== "Mancuso"
user.name #== "Joe Mancuso"

The same thing is true for mutating, or setting, the attribute:

class User:

    def set_name_attribute(self, attribute):
        return str(attribute).upper()

user = User.find(1)
user.name = "joe mancuso"
user.name #== "JOE MANCUSO"

Events

Models emit various events in different stages of its life cycle. Available events are:

• booting

• booted

• creating

• created

• deleting

• deleted

• hydrating

• hydrated

• saving

• saved

• updating

• updated

Observers

You can listen to various events through observers. Observers are simple classes that contain methods equal to the event you would like to listen to.

For example, if you want to listen to when users are created you will create a UserObserver class that contains the created method.

You can scaffold an obsever by running:

masonite-orm observer User --model User

If you do not specify a model option, it will be assumed the model name is the same as the observer name

Once the observer is created you can add your logic to the event methods:

class UserObserver:
    def created(self, user):
        pass

    def creating(self, user):
        pass

    #..

The model object receieved in each event method will be the model at that point in time.

You may then set the observer to a specific model.

If you are using Masonite, this could be done in a service provider:

from app.models.User import User
from app.observers.UserObserver import UserObserver
from masonite.providers import Provider

class ModelProvider(Provider):

    def boot(self):
        User.observe(UserObserver())
        #..

If you are using Masonite ORM outside of Masonite you can simply do this at the bottom of the model definition:

from masoniteorm.models import Model
from some.place.UserObserver import UserObserver

class User(Model):
    #..
    
User.observe(UserObserver())

Related Records

There are many times you need to take several related records and assign them all to the same attribute based on another record.

For example, you may have articles you want to switch the authors of.

For this you can use the attach and save_many methods. Let's say you had a User model that had a articles method that related to the Articles model.

user = User.find(1)
articles = Articles.where('user_id', 2).get()

user.save_many('articles', articles)

This will take all articles where user_id is 2 and assign them the related record between users and article (user_id).

You may do the same for a one-to-one relationship:

user = User.find(1)
phone = Phone.find(30)

user.attach('phone', phone)

Attributes

There are a few attributes that are used for handling model data.

Dirty Attributes

When you set an attribute on a model, the model becomes "dirty". Meaning the model now has attributes changed on it. You can easily check if the model is dirty:

user = User.find(1)
user.is_dirty() #== False
user.name = "Joe"
user.is_dirty() #== True

You specifically get a dirty attribute:

user = User.find(1)
user.name #== Bill
user.name = "Joe"
user.get_dirty("name") #== Joe

This will get the value of the dirty attribute and not the attribute that was set on the model.

Original

This keeps track of the original data that was first set on the model. This data does not change throughout the life of the model:

user = User.find(1)
user.name #== Bill
user.name = "Joe"
user.get_original("name") #== Bill

Saving

Once you have set attributes on a model, you can persist them up to the table by using the save method:

user = User.find(1)
user.name #== Bill
user.name = "Joe"
user.save()