Create models

Models represent tables in your database. Each model should link to one of your database's tables. Every field should also match the name from your database.

If the model you are creating does not exist yet in your database, it will automatically be created when calling new Database(...).sync(...).

Create models

Creating models is very easy. Import Model from the library and create a class based on what you plan to modelize. Let's create a Business model (see the joke here? alright):

import { Model } from 'https://deno.land/x/denodb/mod.ts';

class Business extends Model {}

Set your table name

The name we call our model might differ from the table name in our database. It is usually good practice to use your model name in its plural form, e.g. Business and Flight would respectively become businesses and flights.

To set the name for your table, we will use the static table property:

class Business extends Model {
  static table = 'businesses';
}

Add timestamp default fields

It is very common to have created_at and updated_at fields in our tables. To quickly add this behavior on a model, set timestamps to true:

class Business extends Model {
  // ...

  static timestamps = true;
}

Whenever an instance will be updated, updated_at will automatically be modified.

Add fields

In order to add fields, use the static fields property. All the available data types can be found in the data types section.

import { DataTypes } from 'https://deno.land/x/denodb/mod.ts';

class Business extends Model {
  // ...

  static fields = {
    id: DataTypes.INTEGER,
    name: DataTypes.STRING,
  };
}

You can add as many fields as you want.

Define a primary key

So far, our fields are using regular types: integer and string. However, we often need to add more information for each of our fields e.g. the maximum length of a string field or in this case, set id to be our primary key.

To do so, we need to replace the string returned by DataTypes.INTEGER with an object:

class Business extends Model {
  // ...

  static fields = {
    id: {
      type: DataTypes.INTEGER,
      primaryKey: true,
    },

    // If we need to set the length for `name`, we can also use
    // an object
    name: {
      type: DataTypes.STRING,
      length: 25,
    },

    // Or use a shortcut (check field descriptors to learn more)
    name: DataTypes.string(25),
  };
}

You can learn more about field descriptors (such as primaryKey and length) in the according section.

Set defaults

If you want one of your fields to have a default value, use the static defaults property to do so:

class Business extends Model {
  // ...

  static defaults = {
    name: 'Something About Us',
  };
}

This can be done for any of your predefined fields.