pecan/docs/source/databases.rst

.. _databases:

Working with Databases, Transactions, and ORM's
=============
Out of the box, Pecan provides no opinionated support for working with databases,
but it's easy to hook into your ORM of choice with minimal effort.  This article
details best practices for integrating the popular Python ORM, SQLAlchemy, into
your Pecan project.

``init_model`` and Preparing Your Model
----------------
Pecan's default quickstart project includes an empty stub directory for implementing
your model as you see fit::

    .
    └── test_project
        ├── app.py
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── controllers
        ├── model
        │   ├── __init__.py
        └── templates
    
By default, this module contains a special method, ``init_model``::

    from pecan import conf

    def init_model():
        """
        This is a stub method which is called at application startup time.
        
        If you need to bind to a parse database configuration, set up tables or
        ORM classes, or perform any database initialization, this is the 
        recommended place to do it.

        For more information working with databases, and some common recipes,
        see http://pecan.readthedocs.org/en/latest/databases.html
        """
        pass
        
The purpose of this method is to determine bindings from your configuration file and create
necessary engines, pools, etc... according to your ORM or database toolkit of choice.

Additionally, your project's ``model`` module can be used to define functions for common binding
operations, such as starting transactions, committing or rolling back work, and clearing a Session.
This is also the location in your project where object and relation definitions should be defined.
Here's what a sample Pecan configuration file with database bindings might look like::

    # Server Specific Configurations
    server = {
        ...
    }
    
    # Pecan Application Configurations
    app = {
        ...
    }
    
    # Bindings and options to pass to SQLAlchemy's ``create_engine``
    sqlalchemy = {
        'url'           : 'mysql://root:@localhost/dbname?charset=utf8&use_unicode=0',
        'echo'          : False,
        'echo_pool'     : False,
        'pool_recycle'  : 3600,
        'encoding'      : 'utf-8'
    }

...and a basic model implementation that can be used to configure and bind using SQLAlchemy::

    from pecan                  import conf
    from sqlalchemy             import create_engine, MetaData
    from sqlalchemy.orm         import scoped_session, sessionmaker
    
    Session = scoped_session(sessionmaker())
    metadata = MetaData()
    
    def _engine_from_config(configuration):
        configuration = dict(configuration)
        url = configuration.pop('url')
        return create_engine(url, **configuration)
    
    def init_model():
        conf.sqlalchemy.engine = _engine_from_config(conf.sqlalchemy)
    
    def start():
        Session.bind = conf.sqlalchemy.engine
        metadata.bind = Session.bind
    
    def commit():
        Session.commit()
    
    def rollback():
        Session.rollback()
    
    def clear():
        Session.remove()
        
Binding Within the Application
----------------
There are several approaches that can be taken to wrap your application's requests with calls
to appropriate model function calls.  One approach is WSGI middleware.  We also recommend
Pecan :ref:`hooks`.  Pecan comes with ``TransactionHook``, a hook which can
be used to wrap requests in database transactions for you.  To use it, simply include it in your
project's ``app.py`` file and pass it a set of functions related to database binding::

    from pecan import conf, make_app
    from pecan.hooks import TransactionHook
    from test_project import model

    app = make_app(
        conf.app.root,
        static_root     = conf.app.static_root,
        template_path   = conf.app.template_path,
        debug           = conf.app.debug,
        hooks           = [
            TransactionHook(
                model.start,
                model.start_read_only,
                model.commit,
                model.rollback,
                model.clear
            )
        ]
    )
    
For the above example, on HTTP POST, PUT, and DELETE requests, ``TransactionHook`` behaves in the
following manner:

#.  Before controller routing has been determined, ``model.start()`` is called.  This function should bind to the appropriate SQLAlchemy engine and start a transaction.

#.  Controller code is run and returns.

#.  If your controller or template rendering fails and raises an exception, ``model.rollback()`` is called and the original exception is re-raised.  This allows you to rollback your database transaction to avoid committing work when exceptions occur in your application code.

#.  If the controller returns successfully, ``model.commit()`` and ``model.clear()`` are called.
    
On idempotent operations (like HTTP GET and HEAD requests), TransactionHook behaves in the following
manner:

#.  ``model.start_read_only()`` is called.  This function should bind to your SQLAlchemy engine.

#.  Controller code is run and returns.

#.  If the controller returns successfully, ``model.clear()`` is called.

Also note that there is a useful ``@after_commit`` decorator provided in :ref:`pecan_decorators`.

Splitting Reads and Writes
----------------
Employing the strategy above with ``TransactionHook`` makes it very simple to split database
reads and writes based upon HTTP methods (i.e., GET/HEAD requests are read-only and would potentially
be routed to a read-only database slave, while POST/PUT/DELETE requests require writing, and
would always bind to a master database with read/write privileges).  It's also very easy to extend
``TransactionHook`` or write your own hook implementation for more refined control over where and
when database bindings are called.