Question

Is there a correct way to document SQLAlchemy models? I would like to be able to put field descriptions directly into the class so I can get at the descriptions somehow. Something along Django’s help_text field

 class User(Base):
    username   = Column(u'username', String(255))
    email      = Column(u'email', String(255))

Something along the lines of

 class User(Base):
    username   = Column(u'username', String(255), description="System Username unique across all clusters")
    email      = Column(u'email', String(255), description="Email address of the User, and some other important info about it I would like to get at" )

Answer 1

You can do this after your Base.metadata.create_all(self.db)… don’t quote me though, it’s pretty raw

conn = self.db.connect()
for table in Base.metadata.tables.itervalues():
    for colname in table.columns.keys():
        doc = table.columns[colname].doc
        conn.execute("COMMENT ON COLUMN %s.%s IS %%s"
                     % (table.name, colname), doc)
conn.execute("COMMIT")
conn.close()