Playhouse, a collection of addons

Peewee comes with numerous extras which I didn’t really feel like including in the main source module, but which might be interesting to implementers or fun to mess around with.

The playhouse includes modules for different database drivers or database specific functionality:

Modules which expose higher-level python constructs:

As well as tools for working with databases:

apsw, an advanced sqlite driver

The apsw_ext module contains a database class suitable for use with the apsw sqlite driver.

APSW Project page: https://code.google.com/p/apsw/

APSW is a really neat library that provides a thin wrapper on top of SQLite’s C interface, making it possible to use all of SQLite’s advanced features.

Here are just a few reasons to use APSW, taken from the documentation:

  • APSW gives all functionality of SQLite, including virtual tables, virtual file system, blob i/o, backups and file control.
  • Connections can be shared across threads without any additional locking.
  • Transactions are managed explicitly by your code.
  • APSW can handle nested transactions.
  • Unicode is handled correctly.
  • APSW is faster.

For more information on the differences between apsw and pysqlite, check the apsw docs.

How to use the APSWDatabase

from apsw_ext import *

db = APSWDatabase(':memory:')

class BaseModel(Model):
    class Meta:
        database = db

class SomeModel(BaseModel):
    col1 = CharField()
    col2 = DateTimeField()

apsw_ext API notes

class APSWDatabase(database, **connect_kwargs)
Parameters:
  • database (string) – filename of sqlite database
  • connect_kwargs – keyword arguments passed to apsw when opening a connection
transaction([lock_type='deferred'])

Functions just like the Database.transaction() context manager, but accepts an additional parameter specifying the type of lock to use.

Parameters:lock_type (string) – type of lock to use when opening a new transaction
register_module(mod_name, mod_inst)

Provides a way of globally registering a module. For more information, see the documentation on virtual tables.

Parameters:
  • mod_name (string) – name to use for module
  • mod_inst (object) – an object implementing the Virtual Table interface
unregister_module(mod_name)

Unregister a module.

Parameters:mod_name (string) – name to use for module

Note

Be sure to use the Field subclasses defined in the apsw_ext module, as they will properly handle adapting the data types for storage.

Postgresql Extension (HStore)

The postgresql extensions module provides a number of “postgres-only” functions, currently:

  • hstore support
  • UUID field type
  • DateTimeTZ field type (timezone-aware datetime field)

In the future I would like to add support for more of postgresql’s features. If there is a particular feature you would like to see added, please open a Github issue.

Warning

In order to start using the features described below, you will need to use the extension PostgresqlExtDatabase class instead of PostgresqlDatabase.

The code below will assume you are using the following database and base model:

from playhouse.postgres_ext import *

ext_db = PostgresqlExtDatabase('peewee_test', user='postgres')

class BaseExtModel(Model):
    class Meta:
        database = ext_db

hstore support

Postgresql hstore is an embedded key/value store. With hstore, you can store arbitrary key/value pairs in your database alongside structured relational data.

Currently the postgres_ext module supports the following operations:

  • Store and retrieve arbitrary dictionaries
  • Filter by key(s) or partial dictionary
  • Update/add one or more keys to an existing dictionary
  • Delete one or more keys from an existing dictionary
  • Select keys, values, or zip keys and values
  • Retrieve a slice of keys/values
  • Test for the existence of a key
  • Test that a key has a non-NULL value

Using hstore

To start with, you will need to import the custom database class and the hstore functions from playhouse.postgres_ext (see above code snippet). Then, it is as simple as adding a HStoreField to your model:

class House(BaseExtModel):
    address = CharField()
    features = HStoreField()

You can now store arbitrary key/value pairs on House instances:

>>> h = House.create(address='123 Main St', features={'garage': '2 cars', 'bath': '2 bath'})
>>> h_from_db = House.get(House.id == h.id)
>>> h_from_db.features
{'bath': '2 bath', 'garage': '2 cars'}

You can filter by keys or partial dictionary:

>>> f = House.features
>>> House.select().where(f.contains('garage')) # <-- all houses w/garage key
>>> House.select().where(f.contains(['garage', 'bath'])) # <-- all houses w/garage & bath
>>> House.select().where(f.contains({'garage': '2 cars'})) # <-- houses w/2-car garage

Suppose you want to do an atomic update to the house:

>>> f = House.features
>>> new_features = House.features.update({'bath': '2.5 bath', 'sqft': '1100'})
>>> query = House.update(features=new_features)
>>> query.where(House.id == h.id).execute()
1
>>> h = House.get(House.id == h.id)
>>> h.features
{'bath': '2.5 bath', 'garage': '2 cars', 'sqft': '1100'}

Or, alternatively an atomic delete:

>>> query = House.update(features=f.delete('bath'))
>>> query.where(House.id == h.id).execute()
1
>>> h = House.get(House.id == h.id)
>>> h.features
{'garage': '2 cars', 'sqft': '1100'}

Multiple keys can be deleted at the same time:

>>> query = House.update(features=f.delete('garage', 'sqft'))

You can select just keys, just values, or zip the two:

>>> f = House.features
>>> for h in House.select(House.address, f.keys().alias('keys')):
...     print h.address, h.keys

123 Main St [u'bath', u'garage']

>>> for h in House.select(House.address, f.values().alias('vals')):
...     print h.address, h.vals

123 Main St [u'2 bath', u'2 cars']

>>> for h in House.select(House.address, f.items().alias('mtx')):
...     print h.address, h.mtx

123 Main St [[u'bath', u'2 bath'], [u'garage', u'2 cars']]

You can retrieve a slice of data, for example, all the garage data:

>>> f = House.features
>>> for h in House.select(House.address, f.slice('garage').alias('garage_data')):
...     print h.address, h.garage_data

123 Main St {'garage': '2 cars'}

You can check for the existence of a key and filter rows accordingly:

>>> for h in House.select(House.address, f.exists('garage').alias('has_garage')):
...     print h.address, h.has_garage

123 Main St True

>>> for h in House.select().where(f.exists('garage')):
...     print h.address, h.features['garage'] # <-- just houses w/garage data

123 Main St 2 cars

Sqlite Extensions

The SQLite extensions module provides support for some interesting sqlite-only features:

  • Define custom aggregates, collations and functions.
  • Basic support for virtual tables.
  • Basic support for FTS3/4 (sqlite full-text search).
  • Specify isolation level in transactions.

sqlite_ext API notes

class SqliteExtDatabase(database, **kwargs)

Subclass of the SqliteDatabase that provides some advanced features only offered by Sqlite.

  • Register custom aggregates, collations and functions
  • Specify a row factory
  • Advanced transactions (specify isolation level)
aggregate(num_params[, name])

Class-decorator for registering custom aggregation functions.

Parameters:
  • num_params – integer representing number of parameters the aggregate function accepts.
  • name – string name for the aggregate, defaults to the name of the class.
@db.aggregate(1, 'product')
class Product(object):
    """Like sum, except calculate the product of a series of numbers."""
    def __init__(self):
        self.product = 1

    def step(self, value):
        self.product *= value

    def finalize(self):
        return self.product

# To use this aggregate:
product = (Score
           .select(fn.product(Score.value))
           .scalar())
collation([name])

Function decorator for registering a custom collation.

Parameters:name – string name to use for this collation.
@db.collation()
def collate_reverse(s1, s2):
    return -cmp(s1, s2)

# To use this collation:
Book.select().order_by(collate_reverse.collation(Book.title))

As you might have noticed, the original collate_reverse function has a special attribute called collation attached to it. This extra attribute provides a shorthand way to generate the SQL necessary to use our custom collation.

func([name[, num_params]])

Function decorator for registering user-defined functions.

Parameters:
  • name – name to use for this function.
  • num_params – number of parameters this function accepts. If not provided, peewee will introspect the function for you.
@db.func()
def title_case(s):
    return s.title()

# Use in the select clause...
titled_books = Book.select(fn.title_case(Book.title))

@db.func()
def sha1(s):
    return hashlib.sha1(s).hexdigest()

# Use in the where clause...
user = User.select().where(
    (User.username == username) &
    (fn.sha1(User.password) == password_hash)).get()
granular_transaction([lock_type='deferred'])

With the granular_transaction helper, you can specify the isolation level for an individual transaction. The valid options are:

  • exclusive
  • immediate
  • deferred

Example usage:

with db.granular_transaction('exclusive'):
    # no other readers or writers!
    (Account
     .update(Account.balance=Account.balance - 100)
     .where(Account.id == from_acct)
     .execute())

    (Account
     .update(Account.balance=Account.balance + 100)
     .where(Account.id == to_acct)
     .execute())
class VirtualModel

Subclass of Model that signifies the model operates using a virtual table provided by a sqlite extension.

_extension = 'name of sqlite extension'
class FTSModel

Model class that provides support for Sqlite’s full-text search extension. Models should be defined normally, however there are a couple caveats:

  • Indexes are ignored completely
  • Sqlite will treat all column types as TextField (although you can store other data types, Sqlite will treat them as text).

Therefore it usually makes sense to index the content you intend to search and a single link back to the original document, since all SQL queries except full-text searches and rowid lookups will be slow.

Example:

class Document(FTSModel):
    title = TextField()  # type affinities are ignored by FTS, so use TextField
    content = TextField()

Document.create_table(tokenize='porter')  # use the porter stemmer.

# populate documents using normal operations.
for doc in list_of_docs_to_index:
    Document.create(title=doc['title'], content=doc['content'])

# use the "match" operation for FTS queries.
matching_docs = Document.select().where(match(Document.title, 'some query'))

# to sort by best match, use the custom "rank" function.
best = (Document
        .select(Document, Document.rank('score'))
        .where(match(Document.title, 'some query'))
        .order_by(R('score').desc()))

# or use the shortcut method:
best = Document.match('some phrase')

If you have an existing table and would like to add search for a column on that table, you can specify it using the content option:

class Blog(Model):
    title = CharField()
    pub_date = DateTimeField()
    content = TextField()  # we want to search this.

class FTSBlog(FTSModel):
    content = TextField()

Blog.create_table()
FTSBlog.create_table(content=Blog.content)

# Now, we can manage content in the FTSBlog.  To populate it with
# content:
FTSBlog.rebuild()

# Optimize the index.
FTSBlog.optimize()

The content option accepts either a single Field or a Model and can reduce the amount of storage used. However, content will need to be manually moved to/from the associated FTSModel.

classmethod create_table([fail_silently=False[, **options]])
Parameters:
  • fail_silently (boolean) – do not re-create if table already exists.
  • options – options passed along when creating the table, e.g. content.
classmethod rebuild()

Rebuild the search index – this only works when the content option was specified during table creation.

classmethod optimize()

Optimize the search index.

classmethod match(search_phrase)

Shorthand way of performing a search for a given phrase. Example:

for doc in Document.match('search phrase'):
    print 'match: ', doc.title
classmethod rank([alias])

Shorthand way of sorting search results by the quality of their match.

docs = (Document
        .select(Document, Document.rank().alias('score'))
        .where(match(Document, search))
        .order_by(R('score').desc()))

The above code is exactly what the match() function provides.

Generic foreign keys

The gfk module provides a Generic ForeignKey (GFK), similar to Django. A GFK is composed of two columns: an object ID and an object type identifier. The object types are collected in a global registry (all_models).

How a GFKField is resolved:

  1. Look up the object type in the global registry (returns a model class)
  2. Look up the model instance by object ID

Note

In order to use Generic ForeignKeys, your application’s models must subclass playhouse.gfk.Model. This ensures that the model class will be added to the global registry.

Note

GFKs themselves are not actually a field and will not add a column to your table.

Like regular ForeignKeys, GFKs support a “back-reference” via the ReverseGFK descriptor.

How to use GFKs

  1. Be sure your model subclasses playhouse.gfk.Model
  2. Add a CharField to store the object_type
  3. Add a field to store the object_id (usually a IntegerField)
  4. Add a GFKField and instantiate it with the names of the object_type and object_id fields.
  5. (optional) On any other models, add a ReverseGFK descriptor

Example:

from playhouse.gfk import *

class Tag(Model):
    tag = CharField()
    object_type = CharField(null=True)
    object_id = IntegerField(null=True)
    object = GFKField('object_type', 'object_id')

class Blog(Model):
    tags = ReverseGFK(Tag, 'object_type', 'object_id')

class Photo(Model):
    tags = ReverseGFK(Tag, 'object_type', 'object_id')

How you use these is pretty straightforward hopefully:

>>> b = Blog.create(name='awesome post')
>>> Tag.create(tag='awesome', object=b)
>>> b2 = Blog.create(name='whiny post')
>>> Tag.create(tag='whiny', object=b2)

>>> b.tags # <-- a select query
<class '__main__.Tag'> SELECT t1."id", t1."tag", t1."object_type", t1."object_id" FROM "tag" AS t1 WHERE ((t1."object_type" = ?) AND (t1."object_id" = ?)) [u'blog', 1]

>>> [x.tag for x in b.tags]
[u'awesome']

>>> [x.tag for x in b2.tags]
[u'whiny']

>>> p = Photo.create(name='picture of cat')
>>> Tag.create(object=p, tag='kitties')
>>> Tag.create(object=p, tag='cats')

>>> [x.tag for x in p.tags]
[u'kitties', u'cats']

>>> [x.tag for x in Blog.tags]
[u'awesome', u'whiny']

>>> t = Tag.get(Tag.tag == 'awesome')
>>> t.object
<__main__.Blog at 0x268f450>

>>> t.object.name
u'awesome post'

GFK API

class GFKField([model_type_field='object_type'[, model_id_field='object_id']])

Provide a clean API for storing “generic” foreign keys. Generic foreign keys are comprised of an object type, which maps to a model class, and an object id, which maps to the primary key of the related model class.

Setting the GFKField on a model will automatically populate the model_type_field and model_id_field. Similarly, getting the GFKField on a model instance will “resolve” the two fields, first looking up the model class, then looking up the instance by ID.

class ReverseGFK(model[, model_type_field='object_type'[, model_id_field='object_id']])

Back-reference support for GFKField.

Key/Value Store

Provides a simple key/value store, using a dictionary API. By default the the KeyStore will use an in-memory sqlite database, but any database will work.

To start using the key-store, create an instance and pass it a field to use for the values.

>>> kv = KeyStore(TextField())
>>> kv['a'] = 'A'
>>> kv['a']
'A'

Note

To store arbitrary python objects, use the PickledKeyStore, which stores values in a pickled BlobField.

Using the KeyStore it is possible to use “expressions” to retrieve values from the dictionary. For instance, imagine you want to get all keys which contain a certain substring:

>>> keys_matching_substr = kv[kv.key % '%substr%']
>>> keys_start_with_a = kv[fn.Lower(fn.Substr(kv.key, 1, 1)) == 'a']

KeyStore API

class KeyStore(value_field[, ordered=False[, database=None]])

Lightweight dictionary interface to a model containing a key and value. Implements common dictionary methods, such as __getitem__, __setitem__, get, pop, items, keys, and values.

Parameters:
  • value_field (Field) – Field instance to use as value field, e.g. an instance of TextField.
  • ordered (boolean) – Whether the keys should be returned in sorted order
  • database (Database) – Database class to use for the storage backend. If none is supplied, an in-memory Sqlite DB will be used.

Example:

>>> from playhouse.kv import KeyStore
>>> kv = KeyStore(TextField())
>>> kv['a'] = 'foo'
>>> for k, v in kv:
...     print k, v
a foo

>>> 'a' in kv
True
>>> 'b' in kv
False
class PickledKeyStore([ordered=False[, database=None]])

Identical to the KeyStore except anything can be stored as a value in the dictionary. The storage for the value will be a pickled BlobField.

Example:

>>> from playhouse.kv import PickledKeyStore
>>> pkv = PickledKeyStore()
>>> pkv['a'] = 'A'
>>> pkv['b'] = 1.0
>>> list(pkv.items())
[(u'a', 'A'), (u'b', 1.0)]

Proxy

Proxy class useful for situations when you wish to defer the initialization of an object. For instance, you want to define your models but you do not know what database engine you will be using until runtime.

database_proxy = Proxy()  # Create a proxy for our db.

class BaseModel(Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database_proxy  # Use proxy for our DB.

class User(BaseModel):
    username = CharField()

# Based on configuration, use a different database.
if app.config['DEBUG']:
    database = SqliteDatabase('local.db')
elif app.config['TESTING']:
    database = SqliteDatabase(':memory:')
else:
    database = PostgresqlDatabase('mega_production_db')

# Configure our proxy to use the db we specified in config.
database_proxy.initialize(database)

Proxy API

class Proxy

Create a new Proxy instance.

initialize(obj)
Parameters:obj – The object to proxy to.

Once initialized, the attributes and methods on obj can be accessed directly via the Proxy instance.

Signal support

Models with hooks for signals (a-la django) are provided in playhouse.signals. To use the signals, you will need all of your project’s models to be a subclass of playhouse.signals.Model, which overrides the necessary methods to provide support for the various signals.

from playhouse.signals import Model, post_save


class MyModel(Model):
    data = IntegerField()

@post_save(sender=MyModel)
def on_save_handler(model_class, instance, created):
    put_data_in_cache(instance.data)

The following signals are provided:

pre_save
Called immediately before an object is saved to the database. Provides an additional keyword argument created, indicating whether the model is being saved for the first time or updated.
post_save
Called immediately after an object is saved to the database. Provides an additional keyword argument created, indicating whether the model is being saved for the first time or updated.
pre_delete
Called immediately before an object is deleted from the database when Model.delete_instance() is used.
post_delete
Called immediately after an object is deleted from the database when Model.delete_instance() is used.
pre_init
Called when a model class is first instantiated
post_init
Called after a model class has been instantiated and the fields have been populated, for example when being selected as part of a database query.

Connecting handlers

Whenever a signal is dispatched, it will call any handlers that have been registered. This allows totally separate code to respond to events like model save and delete.

The Signal class provides a connect() method, which takes a callback function and two optional parameters for “sender” and “name”. If specified, the “sender” parameter should be a single model class and allows your callback to only receive signals from that one model class. The “name” parameter is used as a convenient alias in the event you wish to unregister your signal handler.

Example usage:

from playhouse.signals import *

def post_save_handler(sender, instance, created):
    print '%s was just saved' % instance

# our handler will only be called when we save instances of SomeModel
post_save.connect(post_save_handler, sender=SomeModel)

All signal handlers accept as their first two arguments sender and instance, where sender is the model class and instance is the actual model being acted upon.

If you’d like, you can also use a decorator to connect signal handlers. This is functionally equivalent to the above example:

@post_save(sender=SomeModel)
def post_save_handler(sender, instance, created):
    print '%s was just saved' % instance

Signal API

class Signal

Stores a list of receivers (callbacks) and calls them when the “send” method is invoked.

connect(receiver[, sender=None[, name=None]])

Add the receiver to the internal list of receivers, which will be called whenever the signal is sent.

Parameters:
  • receiver (callable) – a callable that takes at least two parameters, a “sender”, which is the Model subclass that triggered the signal, and an “instance”, which is the actual model instance.
  • sender (Model) – if specified, only instances of this model class will trigger the receiver callback.
  • name (string) – a short alias
from playhouse.signals import post_save
from project.handlers import cache_buster

post_save.connect(cache_buster, name='project.cache_buster')
disconnect([receiver=None[, name=None]])

Disconnect the given receiver (or the receiver with the given name alias) so that it no longer is called. Either the receiver or the name must be provided.

Parameters:
  • receiver (callable) – the callback to disconnect
  • name (string) – a short alias
post_save.disconnect(name='project.cache_buster')
send(instance, *args, **kwargs)

Iterates over the receivers and will call them in the order in which they were connected. If the receiver specified a sender, it will only be called if the instance is an instance of the sender.

Parameters:instance – a model instance

pwiz, a model generator

pwiz is a little script that ships with peewee and is capable of introspecting an existing database and generating model code suitable for interacting with the underlying data. If you have a database already, pwiz can give you a nice boost by generating skeleton code with correct column affinities and foreign keys.

If you install peewee using setup.py install, pwiz will be installed as a “script” and you can just run:

pwiz.py -e postgresql -u postgres my_postgres_db

This will print a bunch of models to standard output. So you can do this:

pwiz.py -e postgresql my_postgres_db > mymodels.py
python # <-- fire up an interactive shell
>>> from mymodels import Blog, Entry, Tag, Whatever
>>> print [blog.name for blog in Blog.select()]
Option Meaning Example
-h show help  
-e database backend -e mysql
-H host to connect to -H remote.db.server
-p port to connect on -p 9001
-u database user -u postgres
-P database password -P secret
-s postgres schema -s public

The following are valid parameters for the engine:

  • sqlite
  • mysql
  • postgresql

Basic Schema Migrations

Note

This module is still pretty experimental, but it provides a light API for doing schema migrations with postgresql.

Instantiate a migrator:

my_db = PostgresqlDatabase(...)
migrator = Migrator(my_db)

Adding a field to a model:

# declare a field instance
new_pubdate_field = DateTimeField(null=True)

# in a transaction, add the column to your model
with my_db.transaction():
    migrator.add_column(Story, new_pubdate_field, 'pub_date')

Renaming a field:

# specify the original name of the field and its new name
with my_db.transaction():
    migrator.rename_column(Story, 'pub_date', 'publish_date')

Dropping a field:

# specify the field name to drop
with my_db.transaction():
    migrator.drop_column(Story, 'some_old_field')

Setting nullable / not nullable

with my_db.transaction():
    # make pubdate not nullable
    migrator.set_nullable(Story, Story.pub_date, False)

Renaming a table

with my_db.transaction():
    migrator.rename_table(Story, 'stories')

Test Utils

Contains utilities helpful when testing peewee projects.

class test_database(db, models[, create_tables=True[, fail_silently=False]])

Context manager that lets you use a different database with a set of models. Models can also be automatically created and dropped.

This context manager helps make it possible to test your peewee models using a “test-only” database.

Parameters:
  • db (Database) – Database to use with the given models
  • models – a list of Model classes to use with the db
  • create_tables (boolean) – Whether tables should be automatically created and dropped.
  • fail_silently (boolean) – Whether the table create / drop should fail silently.

Example:

from unittest import TestCase
from playhouse.test_utils import test_database
from peewee import *

from my_app.models import User, Tweet

test_db = SqliteDatabase(':memory:')

class TestUsersTweets(TestCase):
    def create_test_data(self):
        # ... create a bunch of users and tweets
        for i in range(10):
            User.create(username='user-%d' % i)

    def test_timeline(self):
        with test_database(test_db, (User, Tweet)):
            # This data will be created in `test_db`
            self.create_test_data()

            # Perform assertions on test data inside ctx manager.
            self.assertEqual(Tweet.timeline('user-0') [...])

        # once we exit the context manager, we're back to using the normal database