Question

class Geolocation(db.Model):
    __tablename__ = "geolocation"
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    latitude = db.Column(db.Float)
    longitude = db.Column(db.Float)
    elevation = db.Column(db.Float)         # Meters
    # Relationships
    pin = db.relationship('Pin', uselist=False, backref="geolocation")

    def __init__(self, latitude, longitude, elevation):
        self.latitude = latitude
        self.longitude = longitude
        self.elevation = elevation

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<Geolocation %s, %s>' % (self.latitude, self.longitude)


class Pin(db.Model):
    __tablename__ = "pin"
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    geolocation_id = db.Column(db.Integer, db.ForeignKey('geolocation.id'))  # True one to one relationship (Implicit child)

    def __init__(self, geolocation_id):
        self.geolocation_id = geolocation_id

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<Pin Object %s>' % id(self)      # Instance id merely useful to differentiate instances.


class User(Pin):
    #id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    pin_id = db.Column(db.Integer, db.ForeignKey('pin.id'), primary_key=True)
    username = db.Column(db.String(80), unique=True, nullable=False)
    password_hash = db.Column(db.String(120), nullable=False)
    salt = db.Column(db.String(120), nullable=False)
    # Relationships
    #posts = db.relationship('Post', backref=db.backref('user'), lazy='dynamic')               #One User to many Postings.

    def __init__(self, username, password_hash, salt, geolocation_id):
        super(Pin, self).__init__(self, geolocation_id)
        self.username = username
        self.password_hash = password_hash
        self.salt = salt

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<User %r>' % self.username

I’m confused about how to set up id’s and relationships with subclasses in SQLAlchemy (I happen to be using Flask-SQLAlchemy). My general design is to have the superclass Pin be a high level representation of anything that has a geolocation (i.e. a User, a Place, etc.).

There is a one to one relationship between a Pin and Geolocation object so a Geolocation does not contain the location of two Users (or a User and a Place) simultaneously for example. Now I want to subclass Pin to create the User class. A User object should have a name, password_hash, salt and I also want to be able to lookup the Geolocation of the User via userObj.geolocation. However, I later want to make a class Place which also subclasses Pin and I should be able to lookup the geolocation of a Place via placeObj.geolocation . Given a geolocation object, I should be able to use geolocationObj.pin to lookup the User/Place/etc. that the geolocation object corresponds to. The whole reason I introduced the superclass Pin was to ensure that there was a pure one to one relationship between Pin and Geolocation objects rather than having a Geolocation be associated with either a User or a Person which would require the Geolocation table to have user_id and place_id columns, one of which would always be null.

I was expecting every User to automatically have a .geolocation property, via the parent Pin class, which referred to a Geolocation but it seems like SQLAlchemy does not do this. How can I make subclassing relationships work to accomplish my goal of having User and Place and potentially other classes subclass Pin, have each of those classes have a geolocation property via Pin, and have a one to one relationship between a Pin and a Geolocation?

Answer 1

The solution I came up with. This serves as a full example of subclassing in SQLAlchemy in the declarative style and using Join inheritance.

class Geolocation(Base):
    __tablename__ = "geolocation"
    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    latitude = Column(Float)
    longitude = Column(Float)
    elevation = Column(Float)         # Meters
    # Relationships
    person = relationship('Pin', uselist=False, backref="geolocation")

    def __init__(self, latitude, longitude, elevation):
        self.latitude = latitude
        self.longitude = longitude
        self.elevation = elevation

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<Geolocation %s, %s>' % (self.latitude, self.longitude)


class Pin(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'pin'
    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    geolocation_id = Column(Integer, ForeignKey('geolocation.id'), unique=True, nullable=False)  # True one to one relationship (Implicit child)
    type = Column('type', String(50))              # discriminator
    __mapper_args__ = {'polymorphic_on': type}

    def __init__(self, geolocation_id):
        self.geolocation_id = geolocation_id


class User(Pin):
    __tablename__ = 'user'
    id = Column(Integer, ForeignKey('pin.id'), primary_key=True)
    __mapper_args__ = {'polymorphic_identity': 'user',
                       'inherit_condition': (id == Pin.id)}
    user_id = Column(Integer, autoincrement=True, primary_key=True, unique=True)
    username = Column(String(80), unique=True)
    password_hash = Column(String(120))
    salt = Column(String(120))
    posts = relationship('Posting', primaryjoin="(User.user_id==Posting.user_id)", backref=backref('user'), lazy='dynamic')   #One User to many Postings.

    def __init__(self, username, password_hash, salt, geo_id):
        super(User, self).__init__(geo_id)
        self.username = username
        self.password_hash = password_hash
        self.salt = salt

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<User %s>' % (self.username)


class Posting(Pin):
    __tablename__ = 'posting'
    id = Column(Integer, ForeignKey('pin.id'), primary_key=True)
    __mapper_args__ = {'polymorphic_identity': 'posting',
                        'inherit_condition': (id == Pin.id)}
    posting_id = Column(Integer, autoincrement=True, primary_key=True, unique=True)
    creation_time = Column(DateTime)
    expiration_time = Column(DateTime)
    user_id = Column(Integer, ForeignKey('user.user_id'))              # One User to many Postings

    def __init__(self, creation_time, expiration_time, user_id, geo_id):
        super(Posting, self).__init__(geo_id)
        # For now, require creation time to be passed in. May make this default to current time.
        self.creation_time = creation_time
        self.expiration_time = expiration_time
        self.user_id = user_id

    def __repr__(self):
        #TODO come up with a better representation
        return '<Post %s>' % (self.creation_time)