.. _querying:

Querying
========

This section will cover the basic CRUD operations commonly performed on a relational database:

* :py:meth:`Model.create`, for executing *INSERT* queries.
* :py:meth:`Model.save` and :py:meth:`Model.update`, for executing *UPDATE* queries.
* :py:meth:`Model.delete_instance` and :py:meth:`Model.delete`, for executing *DELETE* queries.
* :py:meth:`Model.select`, for executing *SELECT* queries.

Creating a new record
---------------------

You can use :py:meth:`Model.create` to create a new model instance. This method accepts keyword arguments, where the keys correspond to the names of the model's fields. A new instance is returned and a row is added to the table.

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> User.create(username='Charlie')
    <__main__.User object at 0x2529350>

This will *INSERT* a new row into the database. The primary key will automatically be retrieved and stored on the model instance.

Alternatively, you can build up a model instance programmatically and then call :py:meth:`~Model.save`:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> user = User(username='Charlie')
    >>> user.save()  # save() returns the number of rows modified.
    1
    >>> user.id
    1
    >>> huey = User()
    >>> huey.username = 'Huey'
    >>> huey.save()
    1
    >>> huey.id
    2

When a model has a foreign key, you can directly assign a model instance to the foreign key field when creating a new record.

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> tweet = Tweet.create(user=huey, message='Hello!')

You can also use the value of the related object's primary key:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> tweet = Tweet.create(user=2, message='Hello again!')

If you simply wish to insert data and do not need to create a model instance, you can use :py:meth:`Model.insert`:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> User.insert(username='Mickey').execute()
    3

After executing the insert query, the primary key of the new row is returned.

.. note::
    There are several ways you can speed up bulk insert operations. Check out
    the :ref:`bulk_inserts` recipe section for more information.

.. _bulk_inserts:

Bulk inserts
------------

There are a couple of ways you can load lots of data quickly. The naive approach is to simply call :py:meth:`Model.create` in a loop:

.. code-block:: python

    data_source = [
        {'field1': 'val1-1', 'field2': 'val1-2'},
        {'field1': 'val2-1', 'field2': 'val2-2'},
        # ...
    ]

    for data_dict in data_source:
        Model.create(**data_dict)

The above approach is slow for a couple of reasons:

1. If you are using autocommit (the default), then each call to :py:meth:`~Model.create` happens in its own transaction. That is going to be really slow!
2. There is a decent amount of Python logic getting in your way, and each :py:class:`InsertQuery` must be generated and parsed into SQL.
3. That's a lot of data (in terms of raw bytes of SQL) you are sending to your database to parse.
4. We are retrieving the *last insert id*, which causes an additional query to be executed in some cases.

You can get a **very significant speedup** by simply wrapping this in a :py:meth:`~Database.transaction`.

.. code-block:: python

    # This is much faster.
    with db.transaction():
        for data_dict in data_source:
            Model.create(**data_dict)

The above code still suffers from points 2, 3 and 4. We can get another big boost by calling :py:meth:`~Model.insert_many`. This method accepts a list of dictionaries to insert.

.. code-block:: python

    # Fastest.
    with db.transaction():
        Model.insert_many(data_source).execute()

Depending on the number of rows in your data source, you may need to break it up into chunks:

.. code-block:: python

    # Insert rows 1000 at a time.
    with db.transaction():
        for idx in range(0, len(data_source), 1000):
            Model.insert_many(data_source[idx:idx+1000]).execute()

If the data you would like to bulk load is stored in another table, you can also create *INSERT* queries whose source is a *SELECT* query. Use the :py:meth:`Model.insert_from` method:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (TweetArchive
             .insert_from(
                 fields=[Tweet.user, Tweet.message],
                 query=Tweet.select(Tweet.user, Tweet.message))
             .execute())

Updating existing records
-------------------------

Once a model instance has a primary key, any subsequent call to :py:meth:`~Model.save` will result in an *UPDATE* rather than another *INSERT*. The model's primary key will not change:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> user.save()  # save() returns the number of rows modified.
    1
    >>> user.id
    1
    >>> user.save()
    >>> user.id
    1
    >>> huey.save()
    1
    >>> huey.id
    2

If you want to update multiple records, issue an *UPDATE* query. The following example will update all ``Tweet`` objects, marking them as *published*, if they were created before today. :py:meth:`Model.update` accepts keyword arguments where the keys correspond to the model's field names:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> today = datetime.today()
    >>> query = Tweet.update(is_published=True).where(Tweet.creation_date < today)
    >>> query.execute()  # Returns the number of rows that were updated.
    4

For more information, see the documentation on :py:meth:`Model.update` and :py:class:`UpdateQuery`.

.. note::
    If you would like more information on performing atomic updates (such as
    incrementing the value of a column), check out the :ref:`atomic update <atomic_updates>`
    recipes.

.. _atomic_updates:

Atomic updates
--------------

Peewee allows you to perform atomic updates. Let's suppose we need to update some counters. The naive approach would be to write something like this:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> for stat in Stat.select().where(Stat.url == request.url):
    ...     stat.counter += 1
    ...     stat.save()

**Do not do this!** Not only is this slow, but it is also vulnerable to race conditions if multiple processes are updating the counter at the same time.

Instead, you can update the counters atomically using :py:meth:`~Model.update`:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> query = Stat.update(counter=Stat.counter + 1).where(Stat.url == request.url)
    >>> query.execute()

You can make these update statements as complex as you like. Let's give all our employees a bonus equal to their previous bonus plus 10% of their salary:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> query = Employee.update(bonus=(Employee.bonus + (Employee.salary * .1)))
    >>> query.execute()  # Give everyone a bonus!

We can even use a subquery to update the value of a column. Suppose we had a denormalized column on the ``User`` model that stored the number of tweets a user had made, and we updated this value periodically. Here is how you might write such a query:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> subquery = Tweet.select(fn.COUNT(Tweet.id)).where(Tweet.user == User.id)
    >>> update = User.update(num_tweets=subquery)
    >>> update.execute()

Deleting records
----------------

To delete a single model instance, you can use the :py:meth:`Model.delete_instance` shortcut. :py:meth:`~Model.delete_instance` will delete the given model instance and can optionally delete any dependent objects recursively (by specifying `recursive=True`).

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> user = User.get(User.id == 1)
    >>> user.delete_instance()  # Returns the number of rows deleted.
    1

    >>> User.get(User.id == 1)
    UserDoesNotExist: instance matching query does not exist:
    SQL: SELECT t1."id", t1."username" FROM "user" AS t1 WHERE t1."id" = ?
    PARAMS: [1]

To delete an arbitrary set of rows, you can issue a *DELETE* query. The following will delete all ``Tweet`` objects that are over one year old:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> query = Tweet.delete().where(Tweet.creation_date < one_year_ago)
    >>> query.execute()  # Returns the number of rows deleted.
    7

For more information, see the documentation on:

* :py:meth:`Model.delete_instance`
* :py:meth:`Model.delete`
* :py:class:`DeleteQuery`

Selecting a single record
-------------------------

You can use the :py:meth:`Model.get` method to retrieve a single instance matching the given query.

This method is a shortcut that calls :py:meth:`Model.select` with the given query, but limits the result set to a single row. Additionally, if no model matches the given query, a ``DoesNotExist`` exception will be raised.

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> User.get(User.id == 1)
    <__main__.User object at 0x25294d0>

    >>> User.get(User.id == 1).username
    u'Charlie'

    >>> User.get(User.username == 'Charlie')
    <__main__.User object at 0x2529410>

    >>> User.get(User.username == 'nobody')
    UserDoesNotExist: instance matching query does not exist:
    SQL: SELECT t1."id", t1."username" FROM "user" AS t1 WHERE t1."username" = ?
    PARAMS: ['nobody']

For more advanced operations, you can use :py:meth:`SelectQuery.get`. The following query retrieves the latest tweet from the user named *charlie*:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> (Tweet
    ...  .select()
    ...  .join(User)
    ...  .where(User.username == 'charlie')
    ...  .order_by(Tweet.created_date.desc())
    ...  .get())
    <__main__.Tweet object at 0x2623410>

For more information, see the documentation on:

* :py:meth:`Model.get`
* :py:meth:`Model.select`
* :py:meth:`SelectQuery.get`

Get or create
-------------

While peewee has a :py:meth:`~Model.get_or_create` method, this should really not be used outside of tests as it is vulnerable to a race condition. The proper way to perform a *get or create* with peewee is to rely on the database to enforce a constraint.

Let's say we wish to implement registering a new user account using the :ref:`example User model <blog-models>`. The *User* model has a *unique* constraint on the username field, so we will rely on the database's integrity guarantees to ensure we don't end up with duplicate usernames:

.. code-block:: python

    try:
        with db.transaction():
            return User.create(username=username)
    except peewee.IntegrityError:
        # `username` is a unique column, so this username already exists,
        # making it safe to call .get().
        return User.get(User.username == username)

Selecting multiple records
--------------------------

We can use :py:meth:`Model.select` to retrieve rows from the table. When you construct a *SELECT* query, the database will return any rows that correspond to your query. Peewee allows you to iterate over these rows, as well as use indexing and slicing operations.

In the following example, we will simply call :py:meth:`~Model.select` and iterate over the return value, which is an instance of :py:class:`SelectQuery`. This will return all the rows in the *User* table:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> for user in User.select():
    ...     print user.username
    ...
    Charlie
    Huey
    Peewee

.. note::
    Subsequent iterations of the same query will not hit the database as the results are cached. To disable this behavior (to reduce memory usage), call :py:meth:`SelectQuery.iterator` when iterating.

When iterating over a model that contains a foreign key, be careful with the way you access values on related models. Accidentally resolving a foreign key or iterating over a back-reference can cause :ref:`N+1 query behavior <nplusone>`.

When you create a foreign key, such as ``Tweet.user``, you can use the *related_name* to create a back-reference (``User.tweets``). Back-references are exposed as :py:class:`SelectQuery` instances:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> tweet = Tweet.get()
    >>> tweet.user  # Accessing a foreign key returns the related model.
    <tw.User at 0x7f3ceb017f50>

    >>> user = User.get()
    >>> user.tweets  # Accessing a back-reference returns a query.
    <SelectQuery> SELECT t1."id", t1."user_id", t1."message", t1."created_date", t1."is_published" FROM "tweet" AS t1 WHERE (t1."user_id" = ?) [1]

You can iterate over the ``user.tweets`` back-reference just like any other :py:class:`SelectQuery`:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> for tweet in user.tweets:
    ...     print tweet.message
    ...
    hello world
    this is fun
    look at this picture of my food

Filtering records
-----------------

You can filter for particular records using normal python operators. Peewee supports a wide variety of :ref:`query operators <query-operators>`.

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> user = User.get(User.username == 'Charlie')
    >>> for tweet in Tweet.select().where(Tweet.user == user, Tweet.is_published == True):
    ...     print '%s: %s (%s)' % (tweet.user.username, tweet.message)
    ...
    Charlie: hello world
    Charlie: this is fun

    >>> for tweet in Tweet.select().where(Tweet.created_date < datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 1)):
    ...     print tweet.message, tweet.created_date
    ...
    Really old tweet 2010-01-01 00:00:00

You can also filter across joins:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> for tweet in Tweet.select().join(User).where(User.username == 'Charlie'):
    ...     print tweet.message
    hello world
    this is fun
    look at this picture of my food

If you want to express a complex query, use parentheses and python's bitwise *or* and *and* operators:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> Tweet.select().join(User).where(
    ...     (User.username == 'Charlie') |
    ...     (User.username == 'Peewee Herman')
    ... )

Check out :ref:`the table of query operations <query-operators>` to see what types of queries are possible.

.. note::

    A lot of fun things can go in the where clause of a query, such as:

    * A field expression, e.g. ``User.username == 'Charlie'``
    * A function expression, e.g. ``fn.Lower(fn.Substr(User.username, 1, 1)) == 'a'``
    * A comparison of one column to another, e.g. ``Employee.salary < (Employee.tenure * 1000) + 40000``

    You can also nest queries, for example tweets by users whose username starts with "a":

    .. code-block:: python

        # get users whose username starts with "a"
        a_users = User.select().where(fn.Lower(fn.Substr(User.username, 1, 1)) == 'a')

        # the "<<" operator signifies an "IN" query
        a_user_tweets = Tweet.select().where(Tweet.user << a_users)

More query examples
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Get active users:

.. code-block:: python

    User.select().where(User.active == True)

Get users who are either staff or superusers:

.. code-block:: python

    User.select().where(
        (User.is_staff == True) | (User.is_superuser == True))

Get tweets by user named "charlie":

.. code-block:: python

    Tweet.select().join(User).where(User.username == 'charlie')

Get tweets by staff or superusers (assumes FK relationship):

.. code-block:: python

    Tweet.select().join(User).where(
        (User.is_staff == True) | (User.is_superuser == True))

Get tweets by staff or superusers using a subquery:

.. code-block:: python

    staff_super = User.select(User.id).where(
        (User.is_staff == True) | (User.is_superuser == True))
    Tweet.select().where(Tweet.user << staff_super)

Sorting records
---------------

To return rows in order, use the :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.order_by` method:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> for t in Tweet.select().order_by(Tweet.created_date):
    ...     print t.pub_date
    ...
    2010-01-01 00:00:00
    2011-06-07 14:08:48
    2011-06-07 14:12:57

    >>> for t in Tweet.select().order_by(Tweet.created_date.desc()):
    ...     print t.pub_date
    ...
    2011-06-07 14:12:57
    2011-06-07 14:08:48
    2010-01-01 00:00:00

You can also order across joins. Assuming you want to order tweets by the username of the author, then by created_date:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> qry = Tweet.select().join(User).order_by(User.username, Tweet.created_date.desc())

.. code-block:: sql

    SELECT t1."id", t1."user_id", t1."message", t1."is_published", t1."created_date"
    FROM "tweet" AS t1
    INNER JOIN "user" AS t2
      ON t1."user_id" = t2."id"
    ORDER BY t2."username", t1."created_date" DESC

When sorting on a calculated value, you can either include the necessary SQL expressions, or reference the alias assigned to the value. Here are two examples illustrating these methods:

.. code-block:: python

    # Let's start with our base query. We want to get all usernames and the number of
    # tweets they've made. We wish to sort this list from users with most tweets to
    # users with fewest tweets.
    query = (User
             .select(User.username, fn.COUNT(Tweet.id).alias('num_tweets'))
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .group_by(User.username))

You can order using the same COUNT expression used in the ``select`` clause. In the example below we are ordering by the ``COUNT()`` of tweet ids descending:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (User
             .select(User.username, fn.COUNT(Tweet.id).alias('num_tweets'))
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .group_by(User.username)
             .order_by(fn.COUNT(Tweet.id).desc()))

Alternatively, you can reference the alias assigned to the calculated value in the ``select`` clause. This method has the benefit of being a bit easier to read. Note that we are not referring to the named alias directly, but are wrapping it using the :py:class:`SQL` helper:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (User
             .select(User.username, fn.COUNT(Tweet.id).alias('num_tweets'))
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .group_by(User.username)
             .order_by(SQL('num_tweets').desc()))

Getting random records
----------------------

Occasionally you may want to pull a random record from the database. You can accomplish this by ordering by the *random* or *rand* function (depending on your database):

Postgresql and Sqlite use the *Random* function:

.. code-block:: python

    # Pick 5 lucky winners:
    LotteryNumber.select().order_by(fn.Random()).limit(5)

MySQL uses *Rand*:

.. code-block:: python

    # Pick 5 lucky winners:
    LotterNumber.select().order_by(fn.Rand()).limit(5)

Paginating records
------------------

The :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.paginate` method makes it easy to grab a *page* or records. :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.paginate` takes two parameters, ``page_number``, and ``items_per_page``.

.. attention::
    Page numbers are 1-based, so the first page of results will be page 1.

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> for tweet in Tweet.select().order_by(Tweet.id).paginate(2, 10):
    ...     print tweet.message
    ...
    tweet 10
    tweet 11
    tweet 12
    tweet 13
    tweet 14
    tweet 15
    tweet 16
    tweet 17
    tweet 18
    tweet 19

If you would like more granular control, you can always use :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.limit` and :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.offset`.

Counting records
----------------

You can count the number of rows in any select query:

.. code-block:: python

    >>> Tweet.select().count()
    100
    >>> Tweet.select().where(Tweet.id > 50).count()
    50

In some cases it may be necessary to wrap your query and apply a count to the rows of the inner query (such as when using *DISTINCT* or *GROUP BY*). Peewee will usually do this automatically, but in some cases you may need to manually call :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.wrapped_count` instead.

Aggregating records
-------------------

Suppose you have some users and want to get a list of them along with the count of tweets in each. The :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.annotate` method provides a short-hand for creating these types of queries:

.. code-block:: python

    query = User.select().annotate(Tweet)

The above query is equivalent to:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (User
             .select(User, fn.Count(Tweet.id).alias('count'))
             .join(Tweet)
             .group_by(User))

The resulting query will return *User* objects with all their normal attributes plus an additional attribute *count* which will contain the count of tweets for each user. By default it uses an inner join if the foreign key is not nullable, which means users without tweets won't appear in the list. To remedy this, manually specify the type of join to include users with 0 tweets:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (User
             .select()
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .annotate(Tweet))

You can also specify a custom aggregator, such as *MIN* or *MAX*:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (User
             .select()
             .annotate(
                 Tweet,
                 fn.Max(Tweet.created_date).alias('latest_tweet_date')))

Let's assume you have a tagging application and want to find tags that have a certain number of related objects. For this example we'll use some different models in a :ref:`many-to-many <manytomany>` configuration:

.. code-block:: python

    class Photo(Model):
        image = CharField()

    class Tag(Model):
        name = CharField()

    class PhotoTag(Model):
        photo = ForeignKeyField(Photo)
        tag = ForeignKeyField(Tag)

Now say we want to find tags that have at least 5 photos associated with them:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (Tag
             .select()
             .join(PhotoTag)
             .join(Photo)
             .group_by(Tag)
             .having(fn.Count(Photo.id) > 5))

This query is equivalent to the following SQL:

.. code-block:: sql

    SELECT t1."id", t1."name"
    FROM "tag" AS t1
    INNER JOIN "phototag" AS t2 ON t1."id" = t2."tag_id"
    INNER JOIN "photo" AS t3 ON t2."photo_id" = t3."id"
    GROUP BY t1."id", t1."name"
    HAVING Count(t3."id") > 5

Suppose we want to grab the associated count and store it on the tag:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (Tag
             .select(Tag, fn.Count(Photo.id).alias('count'))
             .join(PhotoTag)
             .join(Photo)
             .group_by(Tag)
             .having(fn.Count(Photo.id) > 5))

Retrieving Scalar Values
------------------------

You can retrieve scalar values by calling :py:meth:`Query.scalar`. For instance:

.. code-block:: python

    >>> PageView.select(fn.Count(fn.Distinct(PageView.url))).scalar()
    100

You can retrieve multiple scalar values by passing ``as_tuple=True``:

.. code-block:: python

    >>> Employee.select(
    ...     fn.Min(Employee.salary), fn.Max(Employee.salary)
    ... ).scalar(as_tuple=True)
    (30000, 50000)

SQL Functions, Subqueries and "Raw expressions"
-----------------------------------------------

Suppose you need to want to get a list of all users whose username begins with *a*. There are a couple ways to do this, but one method might be to use some SQL functions like *LOWER* and *SUBSTR*. To use arbitrary SQL functions, use the special :py:func:`fn` object to construct queries:

.. code-block:: python

    # Select the user's id, username and the first letter of their username, lower-cased
    query = User.select(User, fn.Lower(fn.Substr(User.username, 1, 1)).alias('first_letter'))

    # Alternatively we could select only users whose username begins with 'a'
    a_users = User.select().where(fn.Lower(fn.Substr(User.username, 1, 1)) == 'a')

    >>> for user in a_users:
    ...    print user.username

There are times when you may want to simply pass in some arbitrary sql. You can do this using the special :py:class:`SQL` class. One use-case is when referencing an alias:

.. code-block:: python

    # We'll query the user table and annotate it with a count of tweets for
    # the given user
    query = User.select(User, fn.Count(Tweet.id).alias('ct')).join(Tweet).group_by(User)

    # Now we will order by the count, which was aliased to "ct"
    query = query.order_by(SQL('ct'))

There are two ways to execute hand-crafted SQL statements with peewee:

1. :py:meth:`Database.execute_sql` for executing any type of query
2. :py:class:`RawQuery` for executing ``SELECT`` queries and *returning model instances*.

Example:

.. code-block:: python

    db = SqliteDatabase(':memory:')

    class Person(Model):
        name = CharField()
        class Meta:
            database = db

    # let's pretend we want to do an "upsert", something that SQLite can
    # do, but peewee cannot.
    for name in ('charlie', 'mickey', 'huey'):
        db.execute_sql('REPLACE INTO person (name) VALUES (?)', (name,))

    # now let's iterate over the people using our own query.
    for person in Person.raw('select * from person'):
        print person.name  # .raw() will return model instances.

Window functions
----------------

peewee comes with basic support for SQL window functions, which can be created by calling :py:meth:`fn.over` and passing in your partitioning or ordering parameters.

.. code-block:: python

    # Get the list of employees and the average salary for their dept.
    query = (Employee
             .select(
                 Employee.name,
                 Employee.department,
                 Employee.salary,
                 fn.Avg(Employee.salary).over(
                     partition_by=[Employee.department]))
             .order_by(Employee.name))

    # Rank employees by salary.
    query = (Employee
             .select(
                 Employee.name,
                 Employee.salary,
                 fn.rank().over(
                     order_by=[Employee.salary])))

For general information on window functions, check out the `postgresql docs <http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/tutorial-window.html>`_.

Retrieving raw tuples / dictionaries
------------------------------------

Sometimes you do not need the overhead of creating model instances and simply want to iterate over the row tuples. To do this, call :py:meth:`SelectQuery.tuples` or :py:meth:`RawQuery.tuples`:

.. code-block:: python

    stats = Stat.select(Stat.url, fn.Count(Stat.url)).group_by(Stat.url).tuples()

    # iterate over a list of 2-tuples containing the url and count
    for stat_url, stat_count in stats:
        print stat_url, stat_count

Similarly, you can return the rows from the cursor as dictionaries using :py:meth:`SelectQuery.dicts` or :py:meth:`RawQuery.dicts`:

.. code-block:: python

    stats = Stat.select(Stat.url, fn.Count(Stat.url).alias('ct')).group_by(Stat.url).dicts()

    # iterate over a list of 2-tuples containing the url and count
    for stat in stats:
        print stat['url'], stat['ct']

.. _query-operators:

Query operators
===============

The following types of comparisons are supported by peewee:

================ =======================================
Comparison       Meaning
================ =======================================
``==``           x equals y
``<``            x is less than y
``<=``           x is less than or equal to y
``>``            x is greater than y
``>=``           x is greater than or equal to y
``!=``           x is not equal to y
``<<``           x IN y, where y is a list or query
``>>``           x IS y, where y is None/NULL
``%``            x LIKE y where y may contain wildcards
``**``           x ILIKE y where y may contain wildcards
``~``            Negation
================ =======================================

Because I ran out of operators to override, there are some additional query operations available as methods:

======================= ===============================================
Method                  Meaning
======================= ===============================================
``.contains(substr)``   Wild-card search for substring.
``.startswith(prefix)`` Search for values beginning with ``prefix``.
``.endswith(suffix)``   Search for values ending with ``suffix``.
``.between(low, high)`` Search for values between ``low`` and ``high``.
``.regexp(exp)``        Regular expression match.
``.bin_and(value)``     Binary AND.
``.bin_or(value)``      Binary OR.
``.in_(value)``         IN lookup (identical to ``<<``).
======================= ===============================================

To combine clauses using logical operators, use:

================ ==================== ======================================================
Operator         Meaning              Example
================ ==================== ======================================================
``&``            AND                  ``(User.is_active == True) & (User.is_admin == True)``
``|`` (pipe)     OR                   ``(User.is_admin) | (User.is_superuser)``
``~``            NOT (unary negation) ``~(User.username << ['foo', 'bar', 'baz'])``
================ ==================== ======================================================

Here is how you might use some of these query operators:

.. code-block:: python

    # Find the user whose username is "charlie".
    User.select().where(User.username == 'charlie')

    # Find the users whose username is in [charlie, huey, mickey]
    User.select().where(User.username << ['charlie', 'huey', 'mickey'])

    Employee.select().where(Employee.salary.between(50000, 60000))

    Employee.select().where(Employee.name.startswith('C'))

    Blog.select().where(Blog.title.contains(search_string))

Here is how you might combine expressions. Comparisons can be arbitrarily
complex.

.. note::
  Note that the actual comparisons are wrapped in parentheses. Python's operator
  precedence necessitates that comparisons be wrapped in parentheses.

.. code-block:: python

    # Find any users who are active administrations.
    User.select().where(
      (User.is_admin == True) &
      (User.is_active == True))

    # Find any users who are either administrators or super-users.
    User.select().where(
      (User.is_admin == True) |
      (User.is_superuser == True))

    # Find any Tweets by users who are not admins (NOT IN).
    admins = User.select().where(User.is_admin == True)
    non_admin_tweets = Tweet.select().where(
      ~(Tweet.user << admins))

    # Find any users who are not my friends (strangers).
    friends = User.select().where(
      User.username << ['charlie', 'huey', 'mickey'])
    strangers = User.select().where(~(User.id << friends))

.. warning::
    Although you may be tempted to use python's ``in``, ``and``, ``or`` and
    ``not`` operators in your query expressions, these **will not work.** The
    return value of an ``in`` expression is always coerced to a boolean value.
    Similarly, ``and``, ``or`` and ``not`` all treat their arguments as boolean
    values and cannot be overloaded.

    So just remember:

    * Use ``<<`` instead of ``in``
    * Use ``&`` instead of ``and``
    * Use ``|`` instead of ``or``
    * Use ``~`` instead of ``not``
    * Don't forget to wrap your comparisons in parentheses when using logical
      operators.

For more examples, see the :ref:`expressions` section.

.. note::
  **LIKE and ILIKE with SQLite**

  Because SQLite's ``LIKE`` operation is case-insensitive by default,
  peewee will use the SQLite ``GLOB`` operation for case-sensitive searches.
  The glob operation uses asterisks for wildcards as opposed to the usual
  percent-sign. If you are using SQLite and want case-sensitive partial
  string matching, remember to use asterisks for the wildcard.

.. _custom-operators:

Adding user-defined operators
-----------------------------

Because I ran out of python operators to overload, there are some missing operators in peewee, for instance `modulo <https://github.com/coleifer/peewee/issues/177>`_. If you find that you need to support an operator that is not in the table above, it is very easy to add your own.

Here is how you might add support for ``modulo`` in SQLite:

.. code-block:: python

    from peewee import *
    from peewee import Expression # the building block for expressions

    OP_MOD = 'mod'

    def mod(lhs, rhs):
        return Expression(lhs, OP_MOD, rhs)

    SqliteDatabase.register_ops({OP_MOD: '%'})

Now you can use these custom operators to build richer queries:

.. code-block:: python

    # Users with even ids.
    User.select().where(mod(User.id, 2) == 0)

For more examples check out the source to the ``playhouse.postgresql_ext`` module, as it contains numerous operators specific to postgresql's hstore.

.. _expressions:

Expressions
-----------

Peewee is designed to provide a simple, expressive, and pythonic way of constructing SQL queries. This section will provide a quick overview of some common types of expressions.

There are two primary types of objects that can be composed to create expressions:

* :py:class:`Field` instances
* SQL aggregations and functions using :py:class:`fn`

We will assume a simple "User" model with fields for username and other things.
It looks like this:

.. code-block:: python

    class User(Model):
        username = CharField()
        is_admin = BooleanField()
        is_active = BooleanField()
        last_login = DateTimeField()
        login_count = IntegerField()
        failed_logins = IntegerField()


Comparisons use the :ref:`query-operators`:

.. code-block:: python

    # username is equal to 'charlie'
    User.username == 'charlie'

    # user has logged in less than 5 times
    User.login_count < 5

Comparisons can be combined using bitwise *and* and *or*.  Operator precedence is controlled by python and comparisons can be nested to an arbitrary depth:

.. code-block:: python

    # User is both and admin and has logged in today
    (User.is_admin == True) & (User.last_login >= today)

    # User's username is either charlie or charles
    (User.username == 'charlie') | (User.username == 'charles')

Comparisons can be used with functions as well:

.. code-block:: python

    # user's username starts with a 'g' or a 'G':
    fn.Lower(fn.Substr(User.username, 1, 1)) == 'g'

We can do some fairly interesting things, as expressions can be compared against
other expressions.  Expressions also support arithmetic operations:

.. code-block:: python

    # users who entered the incorrect more than half the time and have logged
    # in at least 10 times
    (User.failed_logins > (User.login_count * .5)) & (User.login_count > 10)

Expressions allow us to do atomic updates:

.. code-block:: python

    # when a user logs in we want to increment their login count:
    User.update(login_count=User.login_count + 1).where(User.id == user_id)

Expressions can be used in all parts of a query, so experiment!

Foreign Keys
============

Foreign keys are created using a special field class :py:class:`ForeignKeyField`. Each foreign key also creates a back-reference on the related model using the specified *related_name*.

Traversing foriegn keys
-----------------------

Referring back to the :ref:`User and Tweet models <blog-models>`, note that there is a :py:class:`ForeignKeyField` from *Tweet* to *User*. The foreign key can be traversed, allowing you access to the associated user instance:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> tweet.user.username
    'charlie'

.. note::
    Unless the *User* model was explicitly selected when retrieving the *Tweet*, an additional query will be required to load the *User* data. To learn how to avoid the extra query, see the :ref:`N+1 query documentation <nplusone>`.

The reverse is also true, and we can iterate over the tweets associated with a given *User* instance:

.. code-block:: python

    >>> for tweet in user.tweets:
    ...     print tweet.message
    ...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdhLQCYQ-nQ

Under the hood, the *tweets* attribute is just a :py:class:`SelectQuery` with the *WHERE* clause pre-populated to point to the given *User* instance:

.. code-block:: python

    >>> user.tweets
    <class 'twx.Tweet'> SELECT t1."id", t1."user_id", t1."message", ...

Joining tables
--------------

Use the :py:meth:`~Query.join` method to *JOIN* additional tables. When a foreign key exists between the source model and the join model, you do not need to specify any additional parameters:

.. code-block:: pycon

    >>> my_tweets = Tweet.select().join(User).where(User.username == 'charlie')

By default peewee will use an *INNER* join, but you can use *LEFT OUTER* or *FULL* joins as well:

.. code-block:: python

    users = (User
             .select(User, fn.Count(Tweet.id).alias('num_tweets'))
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .group_by(User)
             .order_by(fn.Count(Tweet.id).desc()))
    for user in users:
        print user.username, 'has created', user.num_tweets, 'tweet(s).'

Multiple Foreign Keys to the Same Model
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When there are multiple foreign keys to the same model, it is good practice to explicitly specify which field you are joining on.

Referring back to the :ref:`example app's models <example-app-models>`, consider the *Relationship* model, which is used to denote when one user follows another. Here is the model definition:

.. code-block:: python

    class Relationship(BaseModel):
        from_user = ForeignKeyField(User, related_name='relationships')
        to_user = ForeignKeyField(User, related_name='related_to')

        class Meta:
            indexes = (
                # Specify a unique multi-column index on from/to-user.
                (('from_user', 'to_user'), True),
            )

Since there are two foreign keys to *User*, we should always specify which field we are using in a join.

For example, to determine which users I am following, I would write:

.. code-block:: python

    (User
    .select()
    .join(Relationship, on=Relationship.to_user)
    .where(Relationship.from_user == charlie))

On the other hand, if I wanted to determine which users are following me, I would instead join on the *from_user* column and filter on the relationship's *to_user*:

.. code-block:: python

    (User
    .select()
    .join(Relationship, on=Relationship.from_user)
    .where(Relationship.to_user == charlie))

Joining on arbitrary fields
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If a foreign key does not exist between two tables you can still perform a join, but you must manually specify the join predicate.

In the following example, there is no explicit foreign-key between *User* and *ActivityLog*, but there is an implied relationship between the *ActivityLog.object_id* field and *User.id*. Rather than joining on a specific :py:class:`Field`, we will join using an :py:class:`Expression`.

.. code-block:: python

    user_log = (User
                .select(User, ActivityLog)
                .join(
                    ActivityLog,
                    on=(User.id == ActivityLog.object_id).alias('log'))
                .where(
                    (ActivityLog.activity_type == 'user_activity') &
                    (User.username == 'charlie')))

    for user in user_log:
        print user.username, user.log.description

    #### Print something like ####
    charlie logged in
    charlie posted a tweet
    charlie retweeted
    charlie posted a tweet
    charlie logged out

.. note::
    By specifying an alias on the join condition, you can control the attribute peewee will assign the joined instance to. In the previous example, we used the following *join*:

    .. code-block:: python

        (User.id == ActivityLog.object_id).alias('log')

    Then when iterating over the query, we were able to directly access the joined *ActivityLog* without incurring an additional query:

    .. code-block:: python

        for user in user_log:
            print user.username, user.log.description

Joining on Multiple Tables
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When calling :py:meth:`~Query.join`, peewee will use the *last joined table* as the source table. For example:

.. code-block:: python

    User.join(Tweet).join(Comment)

This query will result in a join from *User* to *Tweet*, and another join from *Tweet* to *Comment*.

If you would like to join the same table twice, use the :py:meth:`~Query.switch` method:

.. code-block:: python

    # Join the Artist table on both `Ablum` and `Genre`.
    Artist.join(Album).switch(Artist).join(Genre)

.. _manytomany:

Implementing Many to Many
-------------------------

Peewee does not provide a *field* for many to many relationships the way that django does -- this is because the field really is hiding an intermediary table.  To implement many-to-many with peewee, you will therefore create the intermediary table yourself and query through it:

.. code-block:: python

    class Student(Model):
        name = CharField()

    class Course(Model):
        name = CharField()

    class StudentCourse(Model):
        student = ForeignKeyField(Student)
        course = ForeignKeyField(Course)

To query, let's say we want to find students who are enrolled in math class:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (Student
             .select()
             .join(StudentCourse)
             .join(Course)
             .where(Course.name == 'math'))
    for student in query:
        print student.name

To query what classes a given student is enrolled in:

.. code-block:: python

    courses = (Course
        .select()
        .join(StudentCourse)
        .join(Student)
        .where(Student.name == 'da vinci'))

    for course in courses:
        print course.name

To efficiently iterate over a many-to-many relation, i.e., list all students and their respective courses, we will query the *through* model ``StudentCourse`` and *precompute* the Student and Course:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (StudentCourse
        .select(StudentCourse, Student, Course)
        .join(Course)
        .switch(StudentCourse)
        .join(Student)
        .order_by(Student.name))

To print a list of students and their courses you might do the following:

.. code-block:: python

    last = None
    for student_course in query:
        student = student_course.student
        if student != last:
            last = student
            print 'Student: %s' % student.name
        print '    - %s' % student_course.course.name

Since we selected all fields from ``Student`` and ``Course`` in the *select*
clause of the query, these foreign key traversals are "free" and we've done the
whole iteration with just 1 query.

Self-joins
----------

Peewee supports several methods for constructing queries containing a self-join.

Using model aliases
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To join on the same model (table) twice, it is necessary to create a model alias to represent the second instance of the table in a query. Consider the following model:

.. code-block:: python

    class Category(Model):
        name = CharField()
        parent = ForeignKeyField('self', related_name='children')

What if we wanted to query all categories whose parent category is *Electronics*. One way would be to perform a self-join:

.. code-block:: python

    Parent = Category.alias()
    query = (Category
             .select()
             .join(Parent, on=(Category.parent == Parent.id))
             .where(Parent.name == 'Electronics'))

When performing a join that uses a :py:class:`ModelAlias`, it is necessary to specify the join condition using the ``on`` keyword argument. In this case we are joining the category with its parent category.

Using subqueries
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Another less common approach involves the use of subqueries. Here is another way we might construct a query to get all the categories whose parent category is *Electronics* using a subquery:

.. code-block:: python

    join_query = Category.select().where(Category.name == 'Electronics')

    # Subqueries used as JOINs need to have an alias.
    join_query = join_query.alias('jq')

    query = (Category
             .select()
             .join(join_query, on=(Category.parent == join_query.c.id)))

This will generate the following SQL query:

.. code-block:: sql

    SELECT t1."id", t1."name", t1."parent_id"
    FROM "category" AS t1
    INNER JOIN (
      SELECT t3."id"
      FROM "category" AS t3
      WHERE (t3."name" = ?)
    ) AS jq ON (t1."parent_id" = "jq"."id"

To access the ``id`` value from the subquery, we use the ``.c`` magic lookup which will generate the appropriate SQL expression:

.. code-block:: python

    Category.parent == join_query.c.id
    # Becomes: (t1."parent_id" = "jq"."id")

Performance Techniques
======================

This section outlines some techniques for improving performance when using peewee.

.. _nplusone:

Avoiding N+1 queries
--------------------

The term *N+1 queries* refers to a situation where an application performs a query, then for each row of the result set, the application performs at least one other query (another way to conceptualize this is as a nested loop). In many cases, these *n* queries can be avoided through the use of a SQL join or subquery. The database itself may do a nested loop, but it will usually be more performant than doing *n* queries in your application code, which involves latency communicating with the database and may not take advantage of indices or other optimizations employed by the database when joining or executing a subquery.

Peewee provides several APIs for mitigating *N+1* query behavior. Recollecting the models used throughout this document, *User* and *Tweet*, this section will try to outline some common *N+1* scenarios, and how peewee can help you avoid them.

List recent tweets
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The twitter timeline displays a list of tweets from multiple users. In addition to the tweet's content, the username of the tweet's author is also displayed. The N+1 scenario here would be:

1. Fetch the 10 most recent tweets.
2. For each tweet, select the author (10 queries).

By selecting both tables and using a *join*, peewee makes it possible to accomplish this in a single query:

.. code-block:: python

    query = (Tweet
             .select(Tweet, User)  # Note that we are selecting both models.
             .join(User)  # Use an INNER join because every tweet has an author.
             .order_by(Tweet.id.desc())  # Get the most recent tweets.
             .limit(10))

    for tweet in query:
        print tweet.user.username, '-', tweet.message

Without the join, accessing ``tweet.user.username`` would trigger a query to resolve the foreign key ``tweet.user`` and retrieve the associated user. But since we have selected and joined on ``User``, peewee will automatically resolve the foreign-key for us.

List users and all their tweets
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Let's say you want to build a page that shows several users and all of their tweets. The N+1 scenario would be:

1. Fetch some users.
2. For each user, fetch their tweets.

This situation is similar to the previous example, but there is one important difference: when we selected tweets, they only have a single associated user, so we could directly assign the foreign key. The reverse is not true, however, as one user may have any number of tweets (or none at all).

Peewee provides two approaches to avoiding *O(n)* queries in this situation. We can either:

* Fetch both users and tweets in a single query. User data will be duplicated, so peewee will de-dupe it and aggregate the tweets as it iterates through the result set.
* Fetch users first, then fetch all the tweets associated with those users. Once peewee has the big list of tweets, it will assign them out, matching them with the appropriate user.

Each solution has its place and, depending on the size and shape of the data you are querying, one may be more performant than the other.

Let's look at the first approach, since it is more general and can work with arbitrarily complex queries. We will use a special flag, :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.aggregate_rows`, when creating our query. This method tells peewee to de-duplicate any rows that, due to the structure of the JOINs, may be duplicated.

.. code-block:: python

    query = (User
             .select(User, Tweet)  # As in the previous example, we select both tables.
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .order_by(User.username)  # We need to specify an ordering here.
             .aggregate_rows())  # Tell peewee to de-dupe and aggregate results.

    for user in query:
        print user.username
        for tweet in user.tweets:
            print '  ', tweet.message

Ordinarily, ``user.tweets`` would be a :py:class:`SelectQuery` and iterating over it would trigger an additional query. By using :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.aggregate_rows`, though, ``user.tweets`` is a Python ``list`` and no additional query occurs.

.. note::
    We used a *LEFT OUTER* join to ensure that users with zero tweets would
    also be included in the result set.

Below is an example of how we might fetch several users and any tweets they created within the past week. Because we are filtering the tweets and the user may not have any tweets, we need our *WHERE* clause to allow *NULL* tweet IDs.

.. code-block:: python

    week_ago = datetime.date.today() - datetime.timedelta(days=7)
    query = (User
             .select(User, Tweet)
             .join(Tweet, JOIN_LEFT_OUTER)
             .where(
                 (Tweet.id >> None) | (
                     (Tweet.is_published == True) &
                     (Tweet.created_date >= week_ago)))
             .order_by(User.username, Tweet.created_date.desc())
             .aggregate_rows())

    for user in query:
        print user.username
        for tweet in user.tweets:
            print '  ', tweet.message

Using prefetch
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Besides :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.aggregate_rows`, peewee supports a second approach using sub-queries. This method requires the use of a special API, :py:func:`prefetch`. Pre-fetch, as its name indicates, will eagerly load the appropriate tweets for the given users using subqueries. This means instead of *O(n)* queries for *n* rows, we will do *O(k)* queries for *k* tables.

Here is an example of how we might fetch several users and any tweets they created within the past week.

.. code-block:: python

    week_ago = datetime.date.today() - datetime.timedelta(days=7)
    users = User.select()
    tweets = (Tweet
              .select()
              .where(
                  (Tweet.is_published == True) &
                  (Tweet.created_date >= week_ago)))

    # This will perform two queries.
    users_with_tweets = prefetch(users, tweets)

    for user in users_with_tweets:
        print user.username
        for tweet in user.tweets_prefetch:
            print '  ', tweet.message

.. note::
    Note that neither the ``User`` query, nor the ``Tweet`` query contained a
    JOIN clause. When using :py:func:`prefetch` you do not need to specify the
    join.

As with :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.aggregate_rows`, you can use :py:func:`prefetch`
to query an arbitrary number of tables. Check the API documentation for more
examples.

Iterating over lots of rows
---------------------------

By default peewee will cache the rows returned when iterating of a :py:class:`SelectQuery`. This is an optimization to allow multiple iterations as well as indexing and slicing without causing additional queries. This caching can be problematic, however, when you plan to iterate over a large number of rows.

To reduce the amount of memory used by peewee when iterating over a query, use the :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.iterator` method. This method allows you to iterate without caching each model returned, using much less memory when iterating over large result sets.

.. code-block:: python

    # Let's assume we've got 10 million stat objects to dump to a csv file.
    stats = Stat.select()

    # Our imaginary serializer class
    serializer = CSVSerializer()

    # Loop over all the stats and serialize.
    for stat in stats.iterator():
        serializer.serialize_object(stat)

For simple queries you can see further speed improvements by using the :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.naive` method. This method speeds up the construction of peewee model instances from raw cursor data. See the :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.naive` documentation for more details on this optimization.

.. code-block:: python

    for stat in stats.naive().iterator():
        serializer.serialize_object(stat)

You can also see performance improvements by using the :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.dicts` and :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.tuples` methods.

When iterating over a large number of rows that contain columns from multiple tables, peewee will reconstruct the model graph for each row returned. This operation can be slow for complex graphs. To speed up model creation, you can:

* Call :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.naive`, which will not construct a graph and simply patch all attributes from the row directly onto a model instance.
* Use :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.dicts` or :py:meth:`~SelectQuery.tuples`.

Speeding up Bulk Inserts
------------------------

See the :ref:`bulk_inserts` section for details on speeding up bulk insert operations.
