Defines a schema.
An Ecto schema is used to map any data source into an Elixir struct. The definition of the schema is possible through two main APIs: schema/2
and embedded_schema/1
.
schema/2
is typically used to map data from a persisted source, usually a database table, into Elixir structs and vice-versa. For this reason, the first argument of schema/2
is the source (table) name. Structs defined with schema/2
also contain a __meta__
field with metadata holding the status of the struct, for example, if it has been built, loaded or deleted.
On the other hand, embedded_schema/1
is used for defining schemas that are embedded in other schemas or only exist in-memory. For example, you can use such schemas to receive data from a command line interface and validate it, without ever persisting it elsewhere. Such structs do not contain a __meta__
field, as they are never persisted.
Besides working as data mappers, embedded_schema/1
and schema/2
can also be used together to decouple how the data is represented in your applications from the database. Let's see some examples.
defmodule User do use Ecto.Schema schema "users" do field :name, :string field :age, :integer, default: 0 field :password, :string, redact: true has_many :posts, Post end end
By default, a schema will automatically generate a primary key which is named id
and of type :integer
. The field
macro defines a field in the schema with given name and type. has_many
associates many posts with the user schema. Schemas are regular structs and can be created and manipulated directly using Elixir's struct API:
iex> user = %User{name: "jane"} iex> %{user | age: 30}
However, most commonly, structs are cast, validated and manipulated with the Ecto.Changeset
module.
Note that the name of the database table does not need to correlate to your module name. For example, if you are working with a legacy database, you can reference the table name when you define your schema:
defmodule User do use Ecto.Schema schema "legacy_users" do # ... fields ... end end
Embedded schemas are defined similarly to source-based schemas. For example, you can use an embedded schema to represent your UI, mapping and validating its inputs, and then you convert such embedded schema to other schemas that are persisted to the database:
defmodule SignUp do use Ecto.Schema embedded_schema do field :name, :string field :age, :integer field :email, :string field :accepts_conditions, :boolean end end defmodule Profile do use Ecto.Schema schema "profiles" do field :name field :age belongs_to :account, Account end end defmodule Account do use Ecto.Schema schema "accounts" do field :email end end
The SignUp
schema can be cast and validated with the help of the Ecto.Changeset
module, and afterwards, you can copy its data to the Profile
and Account
structs that will be persisted to the database with the help of Ecto.Repo
.
A field marked with redact: true
will display a value of **redacted**
when inspected in changes inside a Ecto.Changeset
and be excluded from inspect on the schema unless the schema module is tagged with the option @ecto_derive_inspect_for_redacted_fields false
.
Supported attributes for configuring the defined schema. They must be set after the use Ecto.Schema
call and before the schema/2
definition.
These attributes are:
@primary_key
- configures the schema primary key. It expects a tuple {field_name, type, options}
with the primary key field name, type (typically :id
or :binary_id
, but can be any type) and options. It also accepts false
to disable the generation of a primary key field. Defaults to {:id, :id, autogenerate: true}
.
@schema_prefix
- configures the schema prefix. Defaults to nil
, which generates structs and queries without prefix. When set, the prefix will be used by every built struct and on queries whenever the schema is used in a from
or a join
. In PostgreSQL, the prefix is called "SCHEMA" (typically set via Postgres' search_path
). In MySQL the prefix points to databases.
@foreign_key_type
- configures the default foreign key type used by belongs_to
associations. It must be set in the same module that defines the belongs_to
. Defaults to :id
;
@timestamps_opts
- configures the default timestamps type used by timestamps
. Defaults to [type: :naive_datetime]
;
@derive
- the same as @derive
available in Kernel.defstruct/1
as the schema defines a struct behind the scenes;
@field_source_mapper
- a function that receives the current field name and returns the mapping of this field name in the underlying source. In other words, it is a mechanism to automatically generate the :source
option for the field
macro. It defaults to fn x -> x end
, where no field transformation is done;
The advantage of configuring the schema via those attributes is that they can be set with a macro to configure application wide defaults.
For example, if your database does not support autoincrementing primary keys and requires something like UUID or a RecordID, you can configure and use :binary_id
as your primary key type as follows:
# Define a module to be used as base defmodule MyApp.Schema do defmacro __using__(_) do quote do use Ecto.Schema @primary_key {:id, :binary_id, autogenerate: true} @foreign_key_type :binary_id end end end # Now use MyApp.Schema to define new schemas defmodule MyApp.Comment do use MyApp.Schema schema "comments" do belongs_to :post, MyApp.Post end end
Any schemas using MyApp.Schema
will get the :id
field with type :binary_id
as the primary key. We explain what the :binary_id
type entails in the next section.
The belongs_to
association on MyApp.Comment
will also define a :post_id
field with :binary_id
type that references the :id
field of the MyApp.Post
schema.
Ecto supports two ID types, called :id
and :binary_id
, which are often used as the type for primary keys and associations.
The :id
type is used when the primary key is an integer while the :binary_id
is used for primary keys in particular binary formats, which may be Ecto.UUID
for databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL, or some specific ObjectID or RecordID often imposed by NoSQL databases.
In both cases, both types have their semantics specified by the underlying adapter/database. If you use the :id
type with :autogenerate
, it means the database will be responsible for auto-generation of the id. This is often the case for primary keys in relational databases which are auto-incremented.
There are two ways to define primary keys in Ecto: using the @primary_key
module attribute and using primary_key: true
as option for field/3
in your schema definition. They are not mutually exclusive and can be used together.
Using @primary_key
should be prefered for single field primary keys and sharing primary key definitions between multiple schemas using macros. Setting @primary_key
also automatically configures the reference types for has_one
and has_many
associations.
Ecto also supports composite primary keys, which is where you need to use primary_key: true
for the fields in your schema. This usually goes along with setting @primary_key false
to disable generation of additional primary key fields.
Besides :id
and :binary_id
, which are often used by primary and foreign keys, Ecto provides a huge variety of types to be used by any field.
When defining the schema, types need to be given. Types are split into two categories, primitive types and custom types.
The primitive types are:
Ecto type | Elixir type | Literal syntax in query |
---|---|---|
:id |
integer |
1, 2, 3 |
:binary_id |
binary |
<<int, int, int, ...>> |
:integer |
integer |
1, 2, 3 |
:float |
float |
1.0, 2.0, 3.0 |
:boolean |
boolean |
true, false |
:string |
UTF-8 encoded string
|
"hello" |
:binary |
binary |
<<int, int, int, ...>> |
{:array, inner_type} |
list |
[value, value, value, ...] |
:map |
map |
|
{:map, inner_type} |
map |
|
:decimal |
Decimal |
|
:date |
Date |
|
:time |
Time |
|
:time_usec |
Time |
|
:naive_datetime |
NaiveDateTime |
|
:naive_datetime_usec |
NaiveDateTime |
|
:utc_datetime |
DateTime |
|
:utc_datetime_usec |
DateTime |
Notes:
For the {:array, inner_type}
and {:map, inner_type}
type, replace inner_type
with one of the valid types, such as :string
.
For the :decimal
type, +Infinity
, -Infinity
, and NaN
values are not supported, even though the Decimal
library handles them. To support them, you can create a custom type.
For calendar types with and without microseconds, the precision is enforced when persisting to the DB. For example, casting ~T[09:00:00]
as :time_usec
will succeed and result in ~T[09:00:00.000000]
, but persisting a type without microseconds as :time_usec
will fail. Similarly, casting ~T[09:00:00.000000]
as :time
will succeed, but persisting will not. This is the same behaviour as seen in other types, where casting has to be done explicitly and is never performed implicitly when loading from or dumping to the database.
Besides providing primitive types, Ecto allows custom types to be implemented by developers, allowing Ecto behaviour to be extended.
A custom type is a module that implements one of the Ecto.Type
or Ecto.ParameterizedType
behaviours. By default, Ecto provides the following custom types:
Custom type | Database type | Elixir type |
---|---|---|
Ecto.UUID |
:uuid (as a binary) |
string() (as a UUID) |
Ecto.Enum |
:string |
atom() |
Finally, schemas can also have virtual fields by passing the virtual: true
option. These fields are not persisted to the database and can optionally not be type checked by declaring type :any
.
Four different datetime primitive types are available:
naive_datetime
- has a precision of seconds and casts values to Elixir's NaiveDateTime
struct which has no timezone information.
naive_datetime_usec
- has a default precision of microseconds and also casts values to NaiveDateTime
with no timezone information.
utc_datetime
- has a precision of seconds and casts values to Elixir's DateTime
struct and expects the time zone to be set to UTC.
utc_datetime_usec
has a default precision of microseconds and also casts values to DateTime
expecting the time zone be set to UTC.
All of those types are represented by the same timestamp/datetime in the underlying data storage, the difference are in their precision and how the data is loaded into Elixir.
Having different precisions allows developers to choose a type that will be compatible with the database and your project's precision requirements. For example, some older versions of MySQL do not support microseconds in datetime fields.
When choosing what datetime type to work with, keep in mind that Elixir functions like NaiveDateTime.utc_now/0
have a default precision of 6. Casting a value with a precision greater than 0 to a non-usec
type will truncate all microseconds and set the precision to 0.
The map type allows developers to store an Elixir map directly in the database:
# In your migration create table(:users) do add :data, :map end # In your schema field :data, :map # Now in your code user = Repo.insert! %User{data: %{"foo" => "bar"}}
Keep in mind that we advise the map keys to be strings or integers instead of atoms. Atoms may be accepted depending on how maps are serialized but the database will always convert atom keys to strings due to security reasons.
In order to support maps, different databases may employ different techniques. For example, PostgreSQL will store those values in jsonb fields, allowing you to just query parts of it. MSSQL, on the other hand, does not yet provide a JSON type, so the value will be stored in a text field.
For maps to work in such databases, Ecto will need a JSON library. By default Ecto will use Jason which needs to be added to your deps in mix.exs
:
{:jason, "~> 1.0"}
You can however configure the adapter to use another library. For example, if using Postgres:
config :postgrex, :json_library, YourLibraryOfChoice
Or if using MySQL:
config :mariaex, :json_library, YourLibraryOfChoice
If changing the JSON library, remember to recompile the adapter afterwards by cleaning the current build:
mix deps.clean --build postgrex
When directly manipulating the struct, it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure the field values have the proper type. For example, you can create a user struct with an invalid value for age
:
iex> user = %User{age: "0"} iex> user.age "0"
However, if you attempt to persist the struct above, an error will be raised since Ecto validates the types when sending them to the adapter/database.
Therefore, when working with and manipulating external data, it is recommended to use Ecto.Changeset
's that are able to filter and properly cast external data:
changeset = Ecto.Changeset.cast(%User{}, %{"age" => "0"}, [:age]) user = Repo.insert!(changeset)
You can use Ecto schemas and changesets to cast and validate any kind of data, regardless if the data will be persisted to an Ecto repository or not.
Any schema module will generate the __schema__
function that can be used for runtime introspection of the schema:
__schema__(:source)
- Returns the source as given to schema/2
;
__schema__(:prefix)
- Returns optional prefix for source provided by @schema_prefix
schema attribute;
__schema__(:primary_key)
- Returns a list of primary key fields (empty if there is none);
__schema__(:fields)
- Returns a list of all non-virtual field names;
__schema__(:field_source, field)
- Returns the alias of the given field;
__schema__(:type, field)
- Returns the type of the given non-virtual field;
__schema__(:associations)
- Returns a list of all association field names;
__schema__(:association, assoc)
- Returns the association reflection of the given assoc;
__schema__(:embeds)
- Returns a list of all embedded field names;
__schema__(:embed, embed)
- Returns the embedding reflection of the given embed;
__schema__(:read_after_writes)
- Non-virtual fields that must be read back from the database after every write (insert or update);
__schema__(:autogenerate_id)
- Primary key that is auto generated on insert;
__schema__(:redact_fields)
- Returns a list of redacted field names;
Furthermore, both __struct__
and __changeset__
functions are defined so structs and changeset functionalities are available.
Generating typespecs for schemas is out of the scope of Ecto.Schema
.
In order to be able to use types such as User.t()
, t/0
has to be defined manually:
defmodule User do use Ecto.Schema @type t :: %__MODULE__{ name: String.t(), age: non_neg_integer() } # ... schema ... end
Defining the type of each field is not mandatory, but it is preferable.
Indicates a one-to-one or many-to-one association with another schema.
Defines an embedded schema with the given field definitions.
Indicates an embedding of many schemas.
Indicates an embedding of many schemas.
Indicates an embedding of a schema.
Indicates an embedding of a schema.
Defines a field on the schema with given name and type.
Indicates a one-to-many association with another schema.
Indicates a one-to-one association with another schema.
Indicates a many-to-many association with another schema.
Defines a schema struct with a source name and field definitions.
Generates :inserted_at
and :updated_at
timestamp fields.
belongs_to(t) :: t | Ecto.Association.NotLoaded.t()
embedded_schema() :: %{optional(atom()) => any(), :__struct__ => atom()}
has_many(t) :: [t] | Ecto.Association.NotLoaded.t()
has_one(t) :: t | Ecto.Association.NotLoaded.t()
many_to_many(t) :: [t] | Ecto.Association.NotLoaded.t()
prefix() :: String.t() | nil
schema() :: %{ optional(atom()) => any(), :__struct__ => atom(), :__meta__ => Ecto.Schema.Metadata.t() }
source() :: String.t()
t() :: schema() | embedded_schema()
Indicates a one-to-one or many-to-one association with another schema.
The current schema belongs to zero or one records of the other schema. The other schema often has a has_one
or a has_many
field with the reverse association.
You should use belongs_to
in the table that contains the foreign key. Imagine a company <-> employee relationship. If the employee contains the company_id
in the underlying database table, we say the employee belongs to company.
In fact, when you invoke this macro, a field with the name of foreign key is automatically defined in the schema for you.
:foreign_key
- Sets the foreign key field name, defaults to the name of the association suffixed by _id
. For example, belongs_to :company
will define foreign key of :company_id
. The associated has_one
or has_many
field in the other schema should also have its :foreign_key
option set with the same value.
:references
- Sets the key on the other schema to be used for the association, defaults to: :id
:define_field
- When false, does not automatically define a :foreign_key
field, implying the user is defining the field manually elsewhere
:type
- Sets the type of automatically defined :foreign_key
. Defaults to: :integer
and can be set per schema via @foreign_key_type
:on_replace
- The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise
(default), :mark_as_invalid
, :nilify
, :update
, or :delete
. See Ecto.Changeset
's section on related data for more info.
:defaults
- Default values to use when building the association. It may be a keyword list of options that override the association schema or a {module, function, args}
that receive the struct and the owner as arguments. For example, if you set Post.has_many :comments, defaults: [public: true]
, then when using Ecto.build_assoc(post, :comments)
that comment will have comment.public == true
. Alternatively, you can set it to Post.has_many :comments, defaults: {__MODULE__, :update_comment, []}
and Post.update_comment(comment, post)
will be invoked.
:primary_key
- If the underlying belongs_to field is a primary key
:source
- Defines the name that is to be used in database for this field
:where
- A filter for the association. See "Filtering associations" in has_many/3
.
defmodule Comment do use Ecto.Schema schema "comments" do belongs_to :post, Post end end # The post can come preloaded on the comment record [comment] = Repo.all(from(c in Comment, where: c.id == 42, preload: :post)) comment.post #=> %Post{...}
If you need custom options on the underlying field, you can define the field explicitly and then pass define_field: false
to belongs_to
:
defmodule Comment do use Ecto.Schema schema "comments" do field :post_id, :integer, ... # custom options belongs_to :post, Post, define_field: false end end
One common use case for belongs to associations is to handle polymorphism. For example, imagine you have defined a Comment schema and you wish to use it for commenting on both tasks and posts.
Some abstractions would force you to define some sort of polymorphic association with two fields in your database:
* commentable_type * commentable_id
The problem with this approach is that it breaks references in the database. You can't use foreign keys and it is very inefficient, both in terms of query time and storage.
In Ecto, we have three ways to solve this issue. The simplest is to define multiple fields in the Comment schema, one for each association:
* task_id * post_id
Unless you have dozens of columns, this is simpler for the developer, more DB friendly and more efficient in all aspects.
Alternatively, because Ecto does not tie a schema to a given table, we can use separate tables for each association. Let's start over and define a new Comment schema:
defmodule Comment do use Ecto.Schema schema "abstract table: comments" do # This will be used by associations on each "concrete" table field :assoc_id, :integer end end
Notice we have changed the table name to "abstract table: comments". You can choose whatever name you want, the point here is that this particular table will never exist.
Now in your Post and Task schemas:
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do has_many :comments, {"posts_comments", Comment}, foreign_key: :assoc_id end end defmodule Task do use Ecto.Schema schema "tasks" do has_many :comments, {"tasks_comments", Comment}, foreign_key: :assoc_id end end
Now each association uses its own specific table, "posts_comments" and "tasks_comments", which must be created on migrations. The advantage of this approach is that we never store unrelated data together, also ensuring we keep database references fast and correct.
When using this technique, the only limitation is that you cannot build comments directly. For example, the command below
Repo.insert!(%Comment{})
will attempt to use the abstract table. Instead, one should use
Repo.insert!(build_assoc(post, :comments))
leveraging the Ecto.build_assoc/3
function. You can also use Ecto.assoc/2
or pass a tuple in the query syntax to easily retrieve associated comments to a given post or task:
# Fetch all comments associated with the given task Repo.all(Ecto.assoc(task, :comments))
Or all comments in a given table:
Repo.all from(c in {"posts_comments", Comment}), ...)
The third and final option is to use many_to_many/3
to define the relationships between the resources. In this case, the comments table won't have the foreign key, instead there is an intermediary table responsible for associating the entries:
defmodule Comment do use Ecto.Schema schema "comments" do # ... end end
In your posts and tasks:
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do many_to_many :comments, Comment, join_through: "posts_comments" end end defmodule Task do use Ecto.Schema schema "tasks" do many_to_many :comments, Comment, join_through: "tasks_comments" end end
See many_to_many/3
for more information on this particular approach.
Defines an embedded schema with the given field definitions.
An embedded schema is either embedded into another schema or kept exclusively in memory. For this reason, an embedded schema does not require a source name and it does not include a metadata field.
Embedded schemas by default set the primary key type to :binary_id
but such can be configured with the @primary_key
attribute.
Indicates an embedding of many schemas.
The current schema has zero or more records of the other schema embedded inside of it. Embeds have all the things regular schemas have.
It is recommended to declare your embeds_many/3
field with type :map
in your migrations, instead of using {:array, :map}
. Ecto can work with both maps and arrays as the container for embeds (and in most databases map are represented as JSON which allows Ecto to choose what works best).
The embedded may or may not have a primary key. Ecto uses the primary keys to detect if an embed is being updated or not. If a primary is not present and you still want the list of embeds to be updated, :on_replace
must be set to :delete
, forcing all current embeds to be deleted and replaced by new ones whenever a new list of embeds is set.
For encoding and decoding of embeds, please read the docs for embeds_one/3
.
:on_replace
- The action taken on associations when the embed is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise
(default), :mark_as_invalid
, or :delete
. See Ecto.Changeset
's section on related data for more info.
:source
- Defines the name that is to be used in database for this field. This is useful when attaching to an existing database. The value should be an atom.
defmodule Order do use Ecto.Schema schema "orders" do embeds_many :items, Item end end defmodule Item do use Ecto.Schema embedded_schema do field :title end end # The items are loaded with the order order = Repo.get!(Order, 42) order.items #=> [%Item{...}, ...]
Adding and removal of embeds can only be done via the Ecto.Changeset
API so Ecto can properly track the embed life-cycle:
# Order has no items order = Repo.get!(Order, 42) order.items # => [] items = [%Item{title: "Soap"}] # Generate a changeset changeset = Ecto.Changeset.change(order) # Put a one or more new items changeset = Ecto.Changeset.put_embed(changeset, :items, items) # Update the order and fetch items items = Repo.update!(changeset).items # Items are generated with a unique identification items # => [%Item{id: "20a97d94-f79b-4e63-a875-85deed7719b7", title: "Soap"}]
Updating of embeds must be done using a changeset for each changed embed.
# Order has an existing items order = Repo.get!(Order, 42) order.items # => [%Item{id: "20a97d94-f79b-4e63-a875-85deed7719b7", title: "Soap"}] # Generate a changeset changeset = Ecto.Changeset.change(order) # Put the updated item as a changeset current_item = List.first(order.items) item_changeset = Ecto.Changeset.change(current_item, title: "Mujju's Soap") order_changeset = Ecto.Changeset.put_embed(changeset, :items, [item_changeset]) # Update the order and fetch items items = Repo.update!(order_changeset).items # Item has the updated title items # => [%Item{id: "20a97d94-f79b-4e63-a875-85deed7719b7", title: "Mujju's Soap"}]
The schema module can be defined inline in the parent schema in simple cases:
defmodule Parent do use Ecto.Schema schema "parents" do field :name, :string embeds_many :children, Child do field :name, :string field :age, :integer end end end
Primary keys are automatically set up for embedded schemas as well, defaulting to {:id, :binary_id, autogenerate: true}
. You can customize it by passing a :primary_key
option with the same arguments as @primary_key
(see the Schema attributes section for more info).
Defining embedded schema in such a way will define a Parent.Child
module with the appropriate struct. In order to properly cast the embedded schema. When casting the inline-defined embedded schemas you need to use the :with
option of cast_embed/3
to provide the proper function to do the casting. For example:
def changeset(schema, params) do schema |> cast(params, [:name]) |> cast_embed(:children, with: &child_changeset/2) end defp child_changeset(schema, params) do schema |> cast(params, [:name, :age]) end
Indicates an embedding of many schemas.
For options and examples see documentation of embeds_many/3
.
Indicates an embedding of a schema.
The current schema has zero or one records of the other schema embedded inside of it. It uses a field similar to the :map
type for storage, but allows embeds to have all the things regular schema can.
You must declare your embeds_one/3
field with type :map
at the database level.
The embedded may or may not have a primary key. Ecto uses the primary keys to detect if an embed is being updated or not. If a primary key is not present, :on_replace
should be set to either :update
or :delete
if there is a desire to either update or delete the current embed when a new one is set.
:on_replace
- The action taken on associations when the embed is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise
(default), :mark_as_invalid
, :update
, or :delete
. See Ecto.Changeset
's section on related data for more info.
:source
- Defines the name that is to be used in database for this field. This is useful when attaching to an existing database. The value should be an atom.
defmodule Order do use Ecto.Schema schema "orders" do embeds_one :item, Item end end defmodule Item do use Ecto.Schema embedded_schema do field :title end end # The item is loaded with the order order = Repo.get!(Order, 42) order.item #=> %Item{...}
Adding and removal of embeds can only be done via the Ecto.Changeset
API so Ecto can properly track the embed life-cycle:
order = Repo.get!(Order, 42) item = %Item{title: "Soap"} # Generate a changeset changeset = Ecto.Changeset.change(order) # Put a new embed to the changeset changeset = Ecto.Changeset.put_embed(changeset, :item, item) # Update the order, and fetch the item item = Repo.update!(changeset).item # Item is generated with a unique identification item # => %Item{id: "20a97d94-f79b-4e63-a875-85deed7719b7", title: "Soap"}
The schema module can be defined inline in the parent schema in simple cases:
defmodule Parent do use Ecto.Schema schema "parents" do field :name, :string embeds_one :child, Child do field :name, :string field :age, :integer end end end
Options should be passed before the do
block like this:
embeds_one :child, Child, on_replace: :delete do field :name, :string field :age, :integer end
Primary keys are automatically set up for embedded schemas as well, defaulting to {:id, :binary_id, autogenerate: true}
. You can customize it by passing a :primary_key
option with the same arguments as @primary_key
(see the Schema attributes section for more info).
Defining embedded schema in such a way will define a Parent.Child
module with the appropriate struct. In order to properly cast the embedded schema. When casting the inline-defined embedded schemas you need to use the :with
option of Ecto.Changeset.cast_embed/3
to provide the proper function to do the casting. For example:
def changeset(schema, params) do schema |> cast(params, [:name]) |> cast_embed(:child, with: &child_changeset/2) end defp child_changeset(schema, params) do schema |> cast(params, [:name, :age]) end
Because many databases do not support direct encoding and decoding of embeds, it is often emulated by Ecto by using specific encoding and decoding rules.
For example, PostgreSQL will store embeds on top of JSONB columns, which means types in embedded schemas won't go through the usual dump->DB->load cycle but rather encode->DB->decode->cast. This means that, when using embedded schemas with databases like PG or MySQL, make sure all of your types can be JSON encoded/decoded correctly. Ecto provides this guarantee for all built-in types.
Indicates an embedding of a schema.
For options and examples see documentation of embeds_one/3
.
Defines a field on the schema with given name and type.
The field name will be used as is to read and write to the database by all of the built-in adapters unless overridden with the :source
option.
:default
- Sets the default value on the schema and the struct. The default value is calculated at compilation time, so don't use expressions like DateTime.utc_now
or Ecto.UUID.generate
as they would then be the same for all records.
:source
- Defines the name that is to be used in database for this field. This is useful when attaching to an existing database. The value should be an atom.
:autogenerate
- a {module, function, args}
tuple for a function to call to generate the field value before insertion if value is not set. A shorthand value of true
is equivalent to {type, :autogenerate, []}
.
:read_after_writes
- When true, the field is always read back from the database after insert and updates.
For relational databases, this means the RETURNING option of those statements is used. For this reason, MySQL does not support this option and will raise an error if a schema is inserted/updated with read after writes fields.
:virtual
- When true, the field is not persisted to the database. Notice virtual fields do not support :autogenerate
nor :read_after_writes
.
:primary_key
- When true, the field is used as part of the composite primary key.
:load_in_query
- When false, the field will not be loaded when selecting the whole struct in a query, such as from p in Post, select: p
. Defaults to true
.
:redact
- When true, it will display a value of **redacted**
when inspected in changes inside a Ecto.Changeset
and be excluded from inspect on the schema. Defaults to false
.
Indicates a one-to-many association with another schema.
The current schema has zero or more records of the other schema. The other schema often has a belongs_to
field with the reverse association.
:foreign_key
- Sets the foreign key, this should map to a field on the other schema, defaults to the underscored name of the current schema suffixed by _id
:references
- Sets the key on the current schema to be used for the association, defaults to the primary key on the schema
:through
- Allow this association to be defined in terms of existing associations. Read the section on :through
associations for more info
:on_delete
- The action taken on associations when parent record is deleted. May be :nothing
(default), :nilify_all
and :delete_all
. Using this option is DISCOURAGED for most relational databases. Instead, in your migration, set references(:parent_id, on_delete: :delete_all)
. Opposite to the migration option, this option cannot guarantee integrity and it is only triggered for Ecto.Repo.delete/2
(and not on Ecto.Repo.delete_all/2
) and it never cascades. If posts has many comments, which has many tags, and you delete a post, only comments will be deleted. If your database does not support references, cascading can be manually implemented by using Ecto.Multi
or Ecto.Changeset.prepare_changes/2
.
:on_replace
- The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise
(default), :mark_as_invalid
, :nilify
, or :delete
. See Ecto.Changeset
's section about ":on_replace" for more info.
:defaults
- Default values to use when building the association. It may be a keyword list of options that override the association schema or a {module, function, args}
that receive the struct and the owner as arguments. For example, if you set Post.has_many :comments, defaults: [public: true]
, then when using Ecto.build_assoc(post, :comments)
that comment will have comment.public == true
. Alternatively, you can set it to Post.has_many :comments, defaults: {__MODULE__, :update_comment, []}
and Post.update_comment(comment, post)
will be invoked.
:where
- A filter for the association. See "Filtering associations" below. It does not apply to :through
associations.
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do has_many :comments, Comment end end # Get all comments for a given post post = Repo.get(Post, 42) comments = Repo.all assoc(post, :comments) # The comments can come preloaded on the post struct [post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :comments)) post.comments #=> [%Comment{...}, ...]
has_many
can be used to define hierarchical relationships within a single schema, for example threaded comments.
defmodule Comment do use Ecto.Schema schema "comments" do field :content, :string field :parent_id, :integer belongs_to :parent, Comment, foreign_key: :parent_id, references: :id, define_field: false has_many :children, Comment, foreign_key: :parent_id, references: :id end end
It is possible to specify a :where
option that will filter the records returned by the association. Querying, joining or preloading the association will use the given conditions as shown next:
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do has_many :public_comments, Comment, where: [public: true] end end
The :where
option expects a keyword list where the key is an atom representing the field and the value is either:
nil
- which specifies the field must be nil{:not, nil}
- which specifies the field must not be nil{:in, list}
- which specifies the field must be one of the values in a list{:fragment, expr}
- which specifies a fragment string as the filter (see Ecto.Query.API.fragment/1
) with the field's value given to it as the only argumentNote the values above are distinctly different from the values you would pass to where
when building a query. For example, if you attempt to build a query such as
from Post, where: [id: nil]
it will emit an error. This is because queries can be built dynamically, and therefore passing nil
can lead to security errors. However, the :where
values for an association are given at compile-time, which is less dynamic and cannot leverage the full power of Ecto queries, which explains why they have different APIs.
Important! Please use this feature only when strictly necessary, otherwise it is very easy to end-up with large schemas with dozens of different associations polluting your schema and affecting your application performance. For instance, if you are using associations only for different querying purposes, then it is preferable to build and compose queries, rather than defining multiple associations:
posts |> Ecto.assoc(:comments) |> Comment.deleted()
Or when preloading:
from posts, preload: [comments: ^Comment.deleted()]
Ecto also supports defining associations in terms of other associations via the :through
option. Let's see an example:
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do has_many :comments, Comment has_one :permalink, Permalink # In the has_many :through example below, the `:comments` # in the list [:comments, :author] refers to the # `has_many :comments` in the Post own schema and the # `:author` refers to the `belongs_to :author` of the # Comment's schema (the module below). # (see the description below for more details) has_many :comments_authors, through: [:comments, :author] # Specify the association with custom source has_many :tags, {"posts_tags", Tag} end end defmodule Comment do use Ecto.Schema schema "comments" do belongs_to :author, Author belongs_to :post, Post has_one :post_permalink, through: [:post, :permalink] end end
In the example above, we have defined a has_many :through
association named :comments_authors
. A :through
association always expects a list and the first element of the list must be a previously defined association in the current module. For example, :comments_authors
first points to :comments
in the same module (Post), which then points to :author
in the next schema, Comment
.
This :through
association will return all authors for all comments that belongs to that post:
# Get all comments authors for a given post post = Repo.get(Post, 42) authors = Repo.all assoc(post, :comments_authors)
:through
associations can also be preloaded. In such cases, not only the :through
association is preloaded but all intermediate steps are preloaded too:
[post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :comments_authors)) post.comments_authors #=> [%Author{...}, ...] # The comments for each post will be preloaded too post.comments #=> [%Comment{...}, ...] # And the author for each comment too hd(post.comments).author #=> %Author{...}
When the :through
association is expected to return one or zero items, has_one :through
should be used instead, as in the example at the beginning of this section:
# How we defined the association above has_one :post_permalink, through: [:post, :permalink] # Get a preloaded comment [comment] = Repo.all(Comment) |> Repo.preload(:post_permalink) comment.post_permalink #=> %Permalink{...}
Note :through
associations are read-only. For example, you cannot use Ecto.Changeset.cast_assoc/3
to modify through associations.
Indicates a one-to-one association with another schema.
The current schema has zero or one records of the other schema. The other schema often has a belongs_to
field with the reverse association.
:foreign_key
- Sets the foreign key, this should map to a field on the other schema, defaults to the underscored name of the current module suffixed by _id
:references
- Sets the key on the current schema to be used for the association, defaults to the primary key on the schema
:through
- If this association must be defined in terms of existing associations. Read the section in has_many/3
for more information
:on_delete
- The action taken on associations when parent record is deleted. May be :nothing
(default), :nilify_all
and :delete_all
. Using this option is DISCOURAGED for most relational databases. Instead, in your migration, set references(:parent_id, on_delete: :delete_all)
. Opposite to the migration option, this option cannot guarantee integrity and it is only triggered for Ecto.Repo.delete/2
(and not on Ecto.Repo.delete_all/2
) and it never cascades. If posts has many comments, which has many tags, and you delete a post, only comments will be deleted. If your database does not support references, cascading can be manually implemented by using Ecto.Multi
or Ecto.Changeset.prepare_changes/2
:on_replace
- The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise
(default), :mark_as_invalid
, :nilify
, :update
, or :delete
. See Ecto.Changeset
's section on related data for more info.
:defaults
- Default values to use when building the association. It may be a keyword list of options that override the association schema or a {module, function, args}
that receive the struct and the owner as arguments. For example, if you set Post.has_many :comments, defaults: [public: true]
, then when using Ecto.build_assoc(post, :comments)
that comment will have comment.public == true
. Alternatively, you can set it to Post.has_many :comments, defaults: {__MODULE__, :update_comment, []}
and Post.update_comment(comment, post)
will be invoked.
:where
- A filter for the association. See "Filtering associations" in has_many/3
. It does not apply to :through
associations.
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do has_one :permalink, Permalink # Specify the association with custom source has_one :category, {"posts_categories", Category} end end # The permalink can come preloaded on the post struct [post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :permalink)) post.permalink #=> %Permalink{...}
Indicates a many-to-many association with another schema.
The association happens through a join schema or source, containing foreign keys to the associated schemas. For example, the association below:
# from MyApp.Post many_to_many :tags, MyApp.Tag, join_through: "posts_tags"
is backed by relational databases through a join table as follows:
[Post] <-> [posts_tags] <-> [Tag] id <-- post_id tag_id --> id
More information on the migration for creating such a schema is shown below.
:join_through
- Specifies the source of the associated data. It may be a string, like "posts_tags", representing the underlying storage table or an atom, like MyApp.PostTag
, representing a schema. This option is required.
:join_keys
- Specifies how the schemas are associated. It expects a keyword list with two entries, the first being how the join table should reach the current schema and the second how the join table should reach the associated schema. In the example above, it defaults to: [post_id: :id, tag_id: :id]
. The keys are inflected from the schema names.
:on_delete
- The action taken on associations when the parent record is deleted. May be :nothing
(default) or :delete_all
. Using this option is DISCOURAGED for most relational databases. Instead, in your migration, set references(:parent_id, on_delete: :delete_all)
. Opposite to the migration option, this option cannot guarantee integrity and it is only triggered for Ecto.Repo.delete/2
(and not on Ecto.Repo.delete_all/2
). This option can only remove data from the join source, never the associated records, and it never cascades.
:on_replace
- The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise
(default), :mark_as_invalid
, or :delete
. :delete
will only remove data from the join source, never the associated records. See Ecto.Changeset
's section on related data for more info.
:defaults
- Default values to use when building the association. It may be a keyword list of options that override the association schema or a {module, function, args}
that receive the struct and the owner as arguments. For example, if you set Post.has_many :comments, defaults: [public: true]
, then when using Ecto.build_assoc(post, :comments)
that comment will have comment.public == true
. Alternatively, you can set it to Post.has_many :comments, defaults: {__MODULE__, :update_comment, []}
and Post.update_comment(comment, post)
will be invoked.
:join_defaults
- The same as :defaults
but it applies to the join schema instead. This option will raise if it is given and the :join_through
value is not a schema.
:unique
- When true, checks if the associated entries are unique whenever the association is cast or changed via the parent record. For instance, it would verify that a given tag cannot be attached to the same post more than once. This exists mostly as a quick check for user feedback, as it does not guarantee uniqueness at the database level. Therefore, you should also set a unique index in the database join table, such as: create unique_index(:posts_tags, [:post_id, :tag_id])
:where
- A filter for the association. See "Filtering associations" in has_many/3
:join_where
- A filter for the join table. See "Filtering associations" in has_many/3
If you attempt to remove associated many_to_many
data, Ecto will always remove data from the join schema and never from the target associations be it by setting :on_replace
to :delete
, :on_delete
to :delete_all
or by using changeset functions such as Ecto.Changeset.put_assoc/3
. For example, if a Post
has a many to many relationship with Tag
, setting :on_delete
to :delete_all
will only delete entries from the "posts_tags" table in case Post
is deleted.
How your migration should be structured depends on the value you pass in :join_through
. If :join_through
is simply a string, representing a table, you may define a table without primary keys and you must not include any further columns, as those values won't be set by Ecto:
create table(:posts_tags, primary_key: false) do add :post_id, references(:posts) add :tag_id, references(:tags) end
However, if your :join_through
is a schema, like MyApp.PostTag
, your join table may be structured as any other table in your codebase, including timestamps:
create table(:posts_tags) do add :post_id, references(:posts) add :tag_id, references(:tags) timestamps() end
Because :join_through
contains a schema, in such cases, autogenerated values and primary keys will be automatically handled by Ecto.
defmodule Post do use Ecto.Schema schema "posts" do many_to_many :tags, Tag, join_through: "posts_tags" end end # Let's create a post and a tag post = Repo.insert!(%Post{}) tag = Repo.insert!(%Tag{name: "introduction"}) # We can associate at any time post and tags together using changesets post |> Repo.preload(:tags) # Load existing data |> Ecto.Changeset.change() # Build the changeset |> Ecto.Changeset.put_assoc(:tags, [tag]) # Set the association |> Repo.update! # In a later moment, we may get all tags for a given post post = Repo.get(Post, 42) tags = Repo.all(assoc(post, :tags)) # The tags may also be preloaded on the post struct for reading [post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :tags)) post.tags #=> [%Tag{...}, ...]
You may prefer to use a join schema to handle many_to_many associations. The decoupled nature of Ecto allows us to create a "join" struct which belongs_to
both sides of the many to many association.
In our example, a User
has and belongs to many Organization
s:
defmodule MyApp.Repo.Migrations.CreateUserOrganization do use Ecto.Migration def change do create table(:users_organizations) do add :user_id, references(:users) add :organization_id, references(:organizations) timestamps() end end end defmodule UserOrganization do use Ecto.Schema @primary_key false schema "users_organizations" do belongs_to :user, User belongs_to :organization, Organization timestamps() # Added bonus, a join schema will also allow you to set timestamps end def changeset(struct, params \\ %{}) do struct |> Ecto.Changeset.cast(params, [:user_id, :organization_id]) |> Ecto.Changeset.validate_required([:user_id, :organization_id]) # Maybe do some counter caching here! end end defmodule User do use Ecto.Schema schema "users" do many_to_many :organizations, Organization, join_through: UserOrganization end end defmodule Organization do use Ecto.Schema schema "organizations" do many_to_many :users, User, join_through: UserOrganization end end # Then to create the association, pass in the ID's of an existing # User and Organization to UserOrganization.changeset changeset = UserOrganization.changeset(%UserOrganization{}, %{user_id: id, organization_id: id}) case Repo.insert(changeset) do {:ok, assoc} -> # Assoc was created! {:error, changeset} -> # Handle the error end
Defines a schema struct with a source name and field definitions.
An additional field called __meta__
is added to the struct for storing internal Ecto state. This field always has a Ecto.Schema.Metadata
struct as value and can be manipulated with the Ecto.put_meta/2
function.
Generates :inserted_at
and :updated_at
timestamp fields.
The fields generated by this macro will automatically be set to the current time when inserting and updating values in a repository.
:inserted_at
- the Ecto schema name of the field for insertion times or false
:updated_at
- the Ecto schema name of the field for update times or false
:inserted_at_source
- the name of the database column for insertion times or false
:updated_at_source
- the name of the database column for update times or false
:type
- the timestamps type, defaults to :naive_datetime
.:autogenerate
- a module-function-args tuple used for generating both inserted_at
and updated_at
timestampsAll options can be pre-configured by setting @timestamps_opts
.
© 2013 Plataformatec
© 2020 Dashbit
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Schema.html