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[FullDOC] gorm.io

advanced_query


title: Advanced Query layout: page

Smart Select Fields

GORM allows select specific fields with Select, if you often use this in your application, maybe you want to define a smaller struct for API usage which can select specific fields automatically, for example:

type User struct {
  ID     uint
  Name   string
  Age    int
  Gender string
  // hundreds of fields
}

type APIUser struct {
  ID   uint
  Name string
}

// Select `id`, `name` automatically when querying
db.Model(&User{}).Limit(10).Find(&APIUser{})
// SELECT `id`, `name` FROM `users` LIMIT 10

{% note warn %} NOTE QueryFields mode will select by all fields' name for current model {% endnote %}

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  QueryFields: true,
})

db.Find(&user)
// SELECT `users`.`name`, `users`.`age`, ... FROM `users` // with this option

// Session Mode
db.Session(&gorm.Session{QueryFields: true}).Find(&user)
// SELECT `users`.`name`, `users`.`age`, ... FROM `users`

Locking (FOR UPDATE)

GORM supports different types of locks, for example:

db.Clauses(clause.Locking{Strength: "UPDATE"}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM `users` FOR UPDATE

db.Clauses(clause.Locking{
  Strength: "SHARE",
  Table: clause.Table{Name: clause.CurrentTable},
}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM `users` FOR SHARE OF `users`

db.Clauses(clause.Locking{
  Strength: "UPDATE",
  Options: "NOWAIT",
}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM `users` FOR UPDATE NOWAIT

Refer Raw SQL and SQL Builder for more detail

SubQuery

A subquery can be nested within a query, GORM can generate subquery when using a *gorm.DB object as param

db.Where("amount > (?)", db.Table("orders").Select("AVG(amount)")).Find(&orders)
// SELECT * FROM "orders" WHERE amount > (SELECT AVG(amount) FROM "orders");

subQuery := db.Select("AVG(age)").Where("name LIKE ?", "name%").Table("users")
db.Select("AVG(age) as avgage").Group("name").Having("AVG(age) > (?)", subQuery).Find(&results)
// SELECT AVG(age) as avgage FROM `users` GROUP BY `name` HAVING AVG(age) > (SELECT AVG(age) FROM `users` WHERE name LIKE "name%")

From SubQuery

GORM allows you using subquery in FROM clause with method Table, for example:

db.Table("(?) as u", db.Model(&User{}).Select("name", "age")).Where("age = ?", 18}).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM (SELECT `name`,`age` FROM `users`) as u WHERE `age` = 18

subQuery1 := db.Model(&User{}).Select("name")
subQuery2 := db.Model(&Pet{}).Select("name")
db.Table("(?) as u, (?) as p", subQuery1, subQuery2).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM (SELECT `name` FROM `users`) as u, (SELECT `name` FROM `pets`) as p

Group Conditions

Easier to write complicated SQL query with Group Conditions

db.Where(
	db.Where("pizza = ?", "pepperoni").Where(db.Where("size = ?", "small").Or("size = ?", "medium")),
).Or(
	db.Where("pizza = ?", "hawaiian").Where("size = ?", "xlarge"),
).Find(&Pizza{}).Statement

// SELECT * FROM `pizzas` WHERE (pizza = "pepperoni" AND (size = "small" OR size = "medium")) OR (pizza = "hawaiian" AND size = "xlarge")

IN with multiple columns

Selecting IN with multiple columns

db.Where("(name, age, role) IN ?", [][]interface{}{{"jinzhu", 18, "admin"}, {"jinzhu2", 19, "user"}}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE (name, age, role) IN (("jinzhu", 18, "admin"), ("jinzhu 2", 19, "user"));

Named Argument

GORM supports named arguments with sql.NamedArg or map[string]interface{}{}, for example:

db.Where("name1 = @name OR name2 = @name", sql.Named("name", "jinzhu")).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE name1 = "jinzhu" OR name2 = "jinzhu"

db.Where("name1 = @name OR name2 = @name", map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu"}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE name1 = "jinzhu" OR name2 = "jinzhu" ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

Check out Raw SQL and SQL Builder for more detail

Find To Map

GORM allows scan result to map[string]interface{} or []map[string]interface{}, don't forget to specify Model or Table, for example:

result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Model(&User{}).First(&result, "id = ?", 1)

var results []map[string]interface{}
db.Table("users").Find(&results)

FirstOrInit

Get first matched record or initialize a new instance with given conditions (only works with struct or map conditions)

// User not found, initialize it with give conditions
db.FirstOrInit(&user, User{Name: "non_existing"})
// user -> User{Name: "non_existing"}

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`
db.Where(User{Name: "jinzhu"}).FirstOrInit(&user)
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "Jinzhu", Age: 18}

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`
db.FirstOrInit(&user, map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu"})
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "Jinzhu", Age: 18}

initialize struct with more attributes if record not found, those Attrs won't be used to build SQL query

// User not found, initialize it with give conditions and Attrs
db.Where(User{Name: "non_existing"}).Attrs(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrInit(&user)
// SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE name = 'non_existing' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// user -> User{Name: "non_existing", Age: 20}

// User not found, initialize it with give conditions and Attrs
db.Where(User{Name: "non_existing"}).Attrs("age", 20).FirstOrInit(&user)
// SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE name = 'non_existing' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// user -> User{Name: "non_existing", Age: 20}

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`, attributes will be ignored
db.Where(User{Name: "Jinzhu"}).Attrs(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrInit(&user)
// SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE name = jinzhu' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "Jinzhu", Age: 18}

Assign attributes to struct regardless it is found or not, those attributes won't be used to build SQL query and the final data won't be saved into database

// User not found, initialize it with give conditions and Assign attributes
db.Where(User{Name: "non_existing"}).Assign(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrInit(&user)
// user -> User{Name: "non_existing", Age: 20}

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`, update it with Assign attributes
db.Where(User{Name: "Jinzhu"}).Assign(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrInit(&user)
// SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE name = jinzhu' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "Jinzhu", Age: 20}

FirstOrCreate

Get first matched record or create a new one with given conditions (only works with struct, map conditions), RowsAffected returns created/updated record's count

// User not found, create a new record with give conditions
result := db.FirstOrCreate(&user, User{Name: "non_existing"})
// INSERT INTO "users" (name) VALUES ("non_existing");
// user -> User{ID: 112, Name: "non_existing"}
// result.RowsAffected // => 0

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`
result := db.Where(User{Name: "jinzhu"}).FirstOrCreate(&user)
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "jinzhu", "Age": 18}
// result.RowsAffected // => 0

Create struct with more attributes if record not found, those Attrs won't be used to build SQL query

// User not found, create it with give conditions and Attrs
db.Where(User{Name: "non_existing"}).Attrs(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrCreate(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'non_existing' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// INSERT INTO "users" (name, age) VALUES ("non_existing", 20);
// user -> User{ID: 112, Name: "non_existing", Age: 20}

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`, attributes will be ignored
db.Where(User{Name: "jinzhu"}).Attrs(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrCreate(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "jinzhu", Age: 18}

Assign attributes to the record regardless it is found or not and save them back to the database.

// User not found, initialize it with give conditions and Assign attributes
db.Where(User{Name: "non_existing"}).Assign(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrCreate(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'non_existing' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// INSERT INTO "users" (name, age) VALUES ("non_existing", 20);
// user -> User{ID: 112, Name: "non_existing", Age: 20}

// Found user with `name` = `jinzhu`, update it with Assign attributes
db.Where(User{Name: "jinzhu"}).Assign(User{Age: 20}).FirstOrCreate(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;
// UPDATE users SET age=20 WHERE id = 111;
// user -> User{ID: 111, Name: "jinzhu", Age: 20}

Optimizer/Index Hints

Optimizer hints allow to control the query optimizer to choose a certain query execution plan, GORM supports it with gorm.io/hints, e.g:

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.New("MAX_EXECUTION_TIME(10000)")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * /*+ MAX_EXECUTION_TIME(10000) */ FROM `users`

Index hints allow passing index hints to the database in case the query planner gets confused.

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.UseIndex("idx_user_name")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` USE INDEX (`idx_user_name`)

db.Clauses(hints.ForceIndex("idx_user_name", "idx_user_id").ForJoin()).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` FORCE INDEX FOR JOIN (`idx_user_name`,`idx_user_id`)"

Refer Optimizer Hints/Index/Comment for more details

Iteration

GORM supports iterating through Rows

rows, err := db.Model(&User{}).Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Rows()
defer rows.Close()

for rows.Next() {
  var user User
  // ScanRows is a method of `gorm.DB`, it can be used to scan a row into a struct
  db.ScanRows(rows, &user)

  // do something
}

FindInBatches

Query and process records in batch

// batch size 100
result := db.Where("processed = ?", false).FindInBatches(&results, 100, func(tx *gorm.DB, batch int) error {
  for _, result := range results {
    // batch processing found records
  }

  tx.Save(&results)

  tx.RowsAffected // number of records in this batch

  batch // Batch 1, 2, 3

  // returns error will stop future batches
  return nil
})

result.Error // returned error
result.RowsAffected // processed records count in all batches

Query Hooks

GORM allows hooks AfterFind for a query, it will be called when querying a record, refer Hooks for details

func (u *User) AfterFind(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if u.Role == "" {
    u.Role = "user"
  }
  return
}

Pluck

Query single column from database and scan into a slice, if you want to query multiple columns, use Select with Scan instead

var ages []int64
db.Model(&users).Pluck("age", &ages)

var names []string
db.Model(&User{}).Pluck("name", &names)

db.Table("deleted_users").Pluck("name", &names)

// Distinct Pluck
db.Model(&User{}).Distinct().Pluck("Name", &names)
// SELECT DISTINCT `name` FROM `users`

// Requesting more than one column, use `Scan` or `Find` like this:
db.Select("name", "age").Scan(&users)
db.Select("name", "age").Find(&users)

Scopes

Scopes allows you to specify commonly-used queries which can be referenced as method calls

func AmountGreaterThan1000(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Where("amount > ?", 1000)
}

func PaidWithCreditCard(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Where("pay_mode_sign = ?", "C")
}

func PaidWithCod(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Where("pay_mode_sign = ?", "C")
}

func OrderStatus(status []string) func (db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func (db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
    return db.Where("status IN (?)", status)
  }
}

db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000, PaidWithCreditCard).Find(&orders)
// Find all credit card orders and amount greater than 1000

db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000, PaidWithCod).Find(&orders)
// Find all COD orders and amount greater than 1000

db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000, OrderStatus([]string{"paid", "shipped"})).Find(&orders)
// Find all paid, shipped orders that amount greater than 1000

Checkout Scopes for details

Count

Get matched records count

var count int64
db.Model(&User{}).Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Or("name = ?", "jinzhu 2").Count(&count)
// SELECT count(1) FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' OR name = 'jinzhu 2'

db.Model(&User{}).Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Count(&count)
// SELECT count(1) FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu'; (count)

db.Table("deleted_users").Count(&count)
// SELECT count(1) FROM deleted_users;

// Count with Distinct
db.Model(&User{}).Distinct("name").Count(&count)
// SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(`name`)) FROM `users`

db.Table("deleted_users").Select("count(distinct(name))").Count(&count)
// SELECT count(distinct(name)) FROM deleted_users

// Count with Group
users := []User{
  {Name: "name1"},
  {Name: "name2"},
  {Name: "name3"},
  {Name: "name3"},
}

db.Model(&User{}).Group("name").Count(&count)
count // => 3

associations


title: Associations layout: page

Auto Create/Update

GORM will auto-save associations and its reference using Upsert when creating/updating a record.

user := User{
  Name:            "jinzhu",
  BillingAddress:  Address{Address1: "Billing Address - Address 1"},
  ShippingAddress: Address{Address1: "Shipping Address - Address 1"},
  Emails:          []Email{
    {Email: "jinzhu@example.com"},
    {Email: "jinzhu-2@example.com"},
  },
  Languages:       []Language{
    {Name: "ZH"},
    {Name: "EN"},
  },
}

db.Create(&user)
// BEGIN TRANSACTION;
// INSERT INTO "addresses" (address1) VALUES ("Billing Address - Address 1"), ("Shipping Address - Address 1") ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// INSERT INTO "users" (name,billing_address_id,shipping_address_id) VALUES ("jinzhu", 1, 2);
// INSERT INTO "emails" (user_id,email) VALUES (111, "jinzhu@example.com"), (111, "jinzhu-2@example.com") ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// INSERT INTO "languages" ("name") VALUES ('ZH'), ('EN') ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// INSERT INTO "user_languages" ("user_id","language_id") VALUES (111, 1), (111, 2) ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// COMMIT;

db.Save(&user)

If you want to update associations's data, you should use the FullSaveAssociations mode:

db.Session(&gorm.Session{FullSaveAssociations: true}).Updates(&user)
// ...
// INSERT INTO "addresses" (address1) VALUES ("Billing Address - Address 1"), ("Shipping Address - Address 1") ON DUPLICATE KEY SET address1=VALUES(address1);
// INSERT INTO "users" (name,billing_address_id,shipping_address_id) VALUES ("jinzhu", 1, 2);
// INSERT INTO "emails" (user_id,email) VALUES (111, "jinzhu@example.com"), (111, "jinzhu-2@example.com") ON DUPLICATE KEY SET email=VALUES(email);
// ...

Skip Auto Create/Update

To skip the auto save when creating/updating, you can use Select or Omit, for example:

user := User{
  Name:            "jinzhu",
  BillingAddress:  Address{Address1: "Billing Address - Address 1"},
  ShippingAddress: Address{Address1: "Shipping Address - Address 1"},
  Emails:          []Email{
    {Email: "jinzhu@example.com"},
    {Email: "jinzhu-2@example.com"},
  },
  Languages:       []Language{
    {Name: "ZH"},
    {Name: "EN"},
  },
}

db.Select("Name").Create(&user)
// INSERT INTO "users" (name) VALUES ("jinzhu", 1, 2);

db.Omit("BillingAddress").Create(&user)
// Skip create BillingAddress when creating a user

db.Omit(clause.Associations).Create(&user)
// Skip all associations when creating a user

{% note warn %} NOTE: For many2many associations, GORM will upsert the associations before creating the join table references, if you want to skip the upserting of associations, you could skip it like:

db.Omit("Languages.*").Create(&user)

The following code will skip the creation of the association and its references

db.Omit("Languages").Create(&user)

{% endnote %}

Select/Omit Association fields

user := User{
  Name:            "jinzhu",
  BillingAddress:  Address{Address1: "Billing Address - Address 1", Address2: "addr2"},
  ShippingAddress: Address{Address1: "Shipping Address - Address 1", Address2: "addr2"},
}

// Create user and his BillingAddress, ShippingAddress
// When creating the BillingAddress only use its address1, address2 fields and omit others
db.Select("BillingAddress.Address1", "BillingAddress.Address2").Create(&user)

db.Omit("BillingAddress.Address2", "BillingAddress.CreatedAt").Create(&user)

Association Mode

Association Mode contains some commonly used helper methods to handle relationships

// Start Association Mode
var user User
db.Model(&user).Association("Languages")
// `user` is the source model, it must contains primary key
// `Languages` is a relationship's field name
// If the above two requirements matched, the AssociationMode should be started successfully, or it should return error
db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Error

Find Associations

Find matched associations

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Find(&languages)

Find associations with conditions

codes := []string{"zh-CN", "en-US", "ja-JP"}
db.Model(&user).Where("code IN ?", codes).Association("Languages").Find(&languages)

db.Model(&user).Where("code IN ?", codes).Order("code desc").Association("Languages").Find(&languages)

Append Associations

Append new associations for many to many, has many, replace current association for has one, belongs to

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Append([]Language{languageZH, languageEN})

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Append(&Language{Name: "DE"})

db.Model(&user).Association("CreditCard").Append(&CreditCard{Number: "411111111111"})

Replace Associations

Replace current associations with new ones

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Replace([]Language{languageZH, languageEN})

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Replace(Language{Name: "DE"}, languageEN)

Delete Associations

Remove the relationship between source & arguments if exists, only delete the reference, won't delete those objects from DB.

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Delete([]Language{languageZH, languageEN})
db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Delete(languageZH, languageEN)

Clear Associations

Remove all reference between source & association, won't delete those associations

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Clear()

Count Associations

Return the count of current associations

db.Model(&user).Association("Languages").Count()

// Count with conditions
codes := []string{"zh-CN", "en-US", "ja-JP"}
db.Model(&user).Where("code IN ?", codes).Association("Languages").Count()

Batch Data

Association Mode supports batch data, e.g:

// Find all roles for all users
db.Model(&users).Association("Role").Find(&roles)

// Delete User A from all user's team
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Delete(&userA)

// Get distinct count of all users' teams
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Count()

// For `Append`, `Replace` with batch data, the length of the arguments needs to be equal to the data's length or else it will return an error
var users = []User{user1, user2, user3}
// e.g: we have 3 users, Append userA to user1's team, append userB to user2's team, append userA, userB and userC to user3's team
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Append(&userA, &userB, &[]User{userA, userB, userC})
// Reset user1's team to userA,reset user2's team to userB, reset user3's team to userA, userB and userC
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Replace(&userA, &userB, &[]User{userA, userB, userC})

Delete with Select

You are allowed to delete selected has one/has many/many2many relations with Select when deleting records, for example:

// delete user's account when deleting user
db.Select("Account").Delete(&user)

// delete user's Orders, CreditCards relations when deleting user
db.Select("Orders", "CreditCards").Delete(&user)

// delete user's has one/many/many2many relations when deleting user
db.Select(clause.Associations).Delete(&user)

// delete each user's account when deleting users
db.Select("Account").Delete(&users)

{% note warn %} NOTE: Associations will only be deleted if the deleting records's primary key is not zero, GORM will use those priamry keys as conditions to delete selected associations

// DOESN'T WORK
db.Select("Account").Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Delete(&User{})
// will delete all user with name `jinzhu`, but those user's account won't be deleted

db.Select("Account").Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Delete(&User{ID: 1})
// will delete the user with name = `jinzhu` and id = `1`, and user `1`'s account will be deleted

db.Select("Account").Delete(&User{ID: 1})
// will delete the user with id = `1`, and user `1`'s account will be deleted

{% endnote %}

Association Tags

Tag Description
foreignKey Specifies column name of the current model that is used as a foreign key to the join table
references Specifies column name of the reference's table that is mapped to the foreign key of the join table
polymorphic Specifies polymorphic type such as model name
polymorphicValue Specifies polymorphic value, default table name
many2many Specifies join table name
joinForeignKey Specifies foreign key column name of join table that maps to the current table
joinReferences Specifies foreign key column name of join table that maps to the reference's table
constraint Relations constraint, e.g: OnUpdate,OnDelete

belongs_to


title: Belongs To layout: page

Belongs To

A belongs to association sets up a one-to-one connection with another model, such that each instance of the declaring model "belongs to" one instance of the other model.

For example, if your application includes users and companies, and each user can be assigned to exactly one company, the following types represent that relationship. Notice here that, on the User object, there is both a CompanyID as well as a Company. By default, the CompanyID is implicitly used to create a foreign key relationship between the User and Company tables, and thus must be included in the User struct in order to fill the Company inner struct.

// `User` belongs to `Company`, `CompanyID` is the foreign key
type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name      string
  CompanyID int
  Company   Company
}

type Company struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
}

Refer to Eager Loading for details on populating the inner struct.

Override Foreign Key

To define a belongs to relationship, the foreign key must exist, the default foreign key uses the owner's type name plus its primary field name.

For the above example, to define the User model that belongs to Company, the foreign key should be CompanyID by convention

GORM provides a way to customize the foreign key, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name         string
  CompanyRefer int
  Company      Company `gorm:"foreignKey:CompanyRefer"`
  // use CompanyRefer as foreign key
}

type Company struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
}

Override References

For a belongs to relationship, GORM usually uses the owner's primary field as the foreign key's value, for the above example, it is Company's field ID.

When you assign a user to a company, GORM will save the company's ID into the user's CompanyID field.

You are able to change it with tag references, e.g:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name      string
  CompanyID string
  Company   Company `gorm:"references:Code"` // use Code as references
}

type Company struct {
  ID   int
  Code string
  Name string
}

CRUD with Belongs To

Please checkout Association Mode for working with belongs to relations

Eager Loading

GORM allows eager loading belongs to associations with Preload or Joins, refer Preloading (Eager loading) for details

FOREIGN KEY Constraints

You can setup OnUpdate, OnDelete constraints with tag constraint, it will be created when migrating with GORM, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name      string
  CompanyID int
  Company   Company `gorm:"constraint:OnUpdate:CASCADE,OnDelete:SET NULL;"`
}

type Company struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
}

changelog


title: Change Log layout: page

v2.0 - 2020.08

GORM 2.0 is a rewrite from scratch, it introduces some incompatible-API change and many improvements

  • Performance Improvements
  • Modularity
  • Context, Batch Insert, Prepared Statement Mode, DryRun Mode, Join Preload, Find To Map, Create From Map, FindInBatches supports
  • Nested Transaction/SavePoint/RollbackTo SavePoint supports
  • Named Argument, Group Conditions, Upsert, Locking, Optimizer/Index/Comment Hints supports, SubQuery improvements
  • Full self-reference relationships supports, Join Table improvements, Association Mode for batch data
  • Multiple fields support for tracking create/update time, which adds support for UNIX (milli/nano) seconds
  • Field permissions support: read-only, write-only, create-only, update-only, ignored
  • New plugin system: multiple databases, read/write splitting support with plugin Database Resolver, prometheus integrations...
  • New Hooks API: unified interface with plugins
  • New Migrator: allows to create database foreign keys for relationships, constraints/checker support, enhanced index support
  • New Logger: context support, improved extensibility
  • Unified Naming strategy: table name, field name, join table name, foreign key, checker, index name rules
  • Better customized data type support (e.g: JSON)

GORM 2.0 Release Note

v1.0 - 2016.04

GORM V1 Docs

Breaking Changes:

  • gorm.Open returns *gorm.DB instead of gorm.DB
  • Updating will only update changed fields
  • Soft Delete's will only check deleted_at IS NULL
  • New ToDBName logic Common initialisms from golint like HTTP, URI was converted to lowercase, so HTTP's db name is http, but not h_t_t_p, but for some other initialisms not in the list, like SKU, it's db name was s_k_u, this change fixed it to sku
  • Error RecordNotFound has been renamed to ErrRecordNotFound
  • mssql dialect has been renamed to github.com/jinzhu/gorm/dialects/mssql
  • Hstore has been moved to package github.com/jinzhu/gorm/dialects/postgres

composite_primary_key


title: Composite Primary Key layout: page

Set multiple fields as primary key creates composite primary key, for example:

type Product struct {
  ID           string `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  LanguageCode string `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  Code         string
  Name         string
}

Note integer PrioritizedPrimaryField enables AutoIncrement by default, to disable it, you need to turn off autoIncrement for the int fields:

type Product struct {
  CategoryID uint64 `gorm:"primaryKey;autoIncrement:false"`
  TypeID     uint64 `gorm:"primaryKey;autoIncrement:false"`
}

connecting_to_the_database


title: Connecting to a Database layout: page

GORM officially supports databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server

MySQL

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/mysql"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

func main() {
  // refer https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql#dsn-data-source-name for details
  dsn := "user:pass@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/dbname?charset=utf8mb4&parseTime=True&loc=Local"
  db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})
}

{% note warn %} NOTE: To handle time.Time correctly, you need to include parseTime as a parameter. (more parameters) To fully support UTF-8 encoding, you need to change charset=utf8 to charset=utf8mb4. See this article for a detailed explanation {% endnote %}

MySQL Driver provides few advanced configurations can be used during initialization, for example:

db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.New(mysql.Config{
  DSN: "gorm:gorm@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/gorm?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local", // data source name
  DefaultStringSize: 256, // default size for string fields
  DisableDatetimePrecision: true, // disable datetime precision, which not supported before MySQL 5.6
  DontSupportRenameIndex: true, // drop & create when rename index, rename index not supported before MySQL 5.7, MariaDB
  DontSupportRenameColumn: true, // `change` when rename column, rename column not supported before MySQL 8, MariaDB
  SkipInitializeWithVersion: false, // auto configure based on currently MySQL version
}), &gorm.Config{})

Customize Driver

GORM allows customize the MySQL driver with the DriverName option, for example:

import (
  _ "example.com/my_mysql_driver"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.New(mysql.Config{
  DriverName: "my_mysql_driver",
  DSN: "gorm:gorm@tcp(localhost:9910)/gorm?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local", // data source name, refer https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql#dsn-data-source-name
}), &gorm.Config{})

Existing database connection

GORM allows to initialize *gorm.DB with an existing database connection

import (
  "database/sql"
  "gorm.io/driver/mysql"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

sqlDB, err := sql.Open("mysql", "mydb_dsn")
gormDB, err := gorm.Open(mysql.New(mysql.Config{
  Conn: sqlDB,
}), &gorm.Config{})

PostgreSQL

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/postgres"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

dsn := "host=localhost user=gorm password=gorm dbname=gorm port=9920 sslmode=disable TimeZone=Asia/Shanghai"
db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})

We are using pgx as postgres's database/sql driver, it enables prepared statement cache by default, to disable it:

// https://github.com/go-gorm/postgres
db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{
  DSN: "user=gorm password=gorm dbname=gorm port=9920 sslmode=disable TimeZone=Asia/Shanghai",
  PreferSimpleProtocol: true, // disables implicit prepared statement usage
}), &gorm.Config{})

Customize Driver

GORM allows customize the PostgreSQL driver with the DriverName option, for example:

import (
  _ "github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/cloudsql-proxy/proxy/dialers/postgres"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{
  DriverName: "cloudsqlpostgres",
  DSN: "host=project:region:instance user=postgres dbname=postgres password=password sslmode=disable",
})

Existing database connection

GORM allows to initialize *gorm.DB with an existing database connection

import (
  "database/sql"
  "gorm.io/driver/postgres"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

sqlDB, err := sql.Open("pgx", "mydb_dsn")
gormDB, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{
  Conn: sqlDB,
}), &gorm.Config{})

SQLite

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlite" // Sqlite driver based on GGO
  // "github.com/glebarez/sqlite" // Pure go SQLite driver, checkout https://github.com/glebarez/sqlite for details
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

// github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{})

{% note warn %} NOTE: You can also use file::memory:?cache=shared instead of a path to a file. This will tell SQLite to use a temporary database in system memory. (See SQLite docs for this) {% endnote %}

SQL Server

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlserver"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

// github.com/denisenkom/go-mssqldb
dsn := "sqlserver://gorm:LoremIpsum86@localhost:9930?database=gorm"
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlserver.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})

Clickhouse

https://github.com/go-gorm/clickhouse

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/clickhouse"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

func main() {
  dsn := "tcp://localhost:9000?database=gorm&username=gorm&password=gorm&read_timeout=10&write_timeout=20"
  db, err := gorm.Open(clickhouse.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})

  // Auto Migrate
  db.AutoMigrate(&User{})
  // Set table options
  db.Set("gorm:table_options", "ENGINE=Distributed(cluster, default, hits)").AutoMigrate(&User{})

  // Insert
  db.Create(&user)

  // Select
  db.Find(&user, "id = ?", 10)

  // Batch Insert
  var users = []User{user1, user2, user3}
  db.Create(&users)
  // ...
}

Connection Pool

GORM using database/sql to maintain connection pool

sqlDB, err := db.DB()

// SetMaxIdleConns sets the maximum number of connections in the idle connection pool.
sqlDB.SetMaxIdleConns(10)

// SetMaxOpenConns sets the maximum number of open connections to the database.
sqlDB.SetMaxOpenConns(100)

// SetConnMaxLifetime sets the maximum amount of time a connection may be reused.
sqlDB.SetConnMaxLifetime(time.Hour)

Refer Generic Interface for details

Unsupported Databases

Some databases may be compatible with the mysql or postgres dialect, in which case you could just use the dialect for those databases.

For others, you are encouraged to make a driver, pull request welcome!

constraints


title: Constraints layout: page

GORM allows create database constraints with tag, constraints will be created when AutoMigrate or CreateTable with GORM

CHECK Constraint

Create CHECK constraints with tag check

type UserIndex struct {
	Name  string `gorm:"check:name_checker,name <> 'jinzhu'"`
	Name2 string `gorm:"check:name <> 'jinzhu'"`
	Name3 string `gorm:"check:,name <> 'jinzhu'"`
}

Index Constraint

Checkout Database Indexes

Foreign Key Constraint

GORM will creates foreign keys constraints for associations, you can disable this feature during initialization:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  DisableForeignKeyConstraintWhenMigrating: true,
})

GORM allows you setup FOREIGN KEY constraints's OnDelete, OnUpdate option with tag constraint, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CompanyID  int
  Company    Company    `gorm:"constraint:OnUpdate:CASCADE,OnDelete:SET NULL;"`
  CreditCard CreditCard `gorm:"constraint:OnUpdate:CASCADE,OnDelete:SET NULL;"`
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number string
  UserID uint
}

type Company struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
}

context


title: Context layout: page

GORM provides Context support, you can use it with method WithContext

Single Session Mode

Single session mode usually used when you want to perform a single operation

db.WithContext(ctx).Find(&users)

Continuous session mode

Continuous session mode usually used when you want to perform a group of operations, for example:

tx := db.WithContext(ctx)
tx.First(&user, 1)
tx.Model(&user).Update("role", "admin")

Context in Hooks/Callbacks

You could access the Context object from current Statement, for example:

func (u *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  ctx := tx.Statement.Context
  // ...
  return
}

Chi Middleware Example

Continuous session mode which might be helpful when handling API requests, for example, you can set up *gorm.DB with Timeout Context in middlewares, and then use the *gorm.DB when processing all requests

Following is a Chi middleware example:

func SetDBMiddleware(next http.Handler) http.Handler {
  return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    timeoutContext, _ := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), time.Second)
    ctx := context.WithValue(r.Context(), "DB", db.WithContext(timeoutContext))
    next.ServeHTTP(w, r.WithContext(ctx))
  })
}

r := chi.NewRouter()
r.Use(SetDBMiddleware)

r.Get("/", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
  db, ok := ctx.Value("DB").(*gorm.DB)

  var users []User
  db.Find(&users)

  // lots of db operations
})

r.Get("/user", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
  db, ok := ctx.Value("DB").(*gorm.DB)

  var user User
  db.First(&user)

  // lots of db operations
})

{% note %} NOTE Set Context with WithContext is goroutine-safe, refer Session for details {% endnote %}

Logger

Logger accepts Context too, you can use it for log tracking, refer Logger for details

conventions


title: Conventions layout: page

ID as Primary Key

GORM uses the field with the name ID as the table's primary key by default.

type User struct {
  ID   string // field named `ID` will be used as a primary field by default
  Name string
}

You can set other fields as primary key with tag primaryKey

// Set field `UUID` as primary field
type Animal struct {
  ID     int64
  UUID   string `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  Name   string
  Age    int64
}

Also check out Composite Primary Key

Pluralized Table Name

GORM pluralizes struct name to snake_cases as table name, for struct User, its table name is users by convention

TableName

You can change the default table name by implementing the Tabler interface, for example:

type Tabler interface {
	TableName() string
}

// TableName overrides the table name used by User to `profiles`
func (User) TableName() string {
  return "profiles"
}

{% note warn %} NOTE TableName doesn't allow dynamic name, its result will be cached for future, to use dynamic name, you can use Scopes, for example: {% endnote %}

func UserTable(user User) func (tx *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func (tx *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
    if user.Admin {
      return tx.Table("admin_users")
    }

    return tx.Table("users")
  }
}

db.Scopes(UserTable(user)).Create(&user)

Temporarily specify a name

Temporarily specify table name with Table method, for example:

// Create table `deleted_users` with struct User's fields
db.Table("deleted_users").AutoMigrate(&User{})

// Query data from another table
var deletedUsers []User
db.Table("deleted_users").Find(&deletedUsers)
// SELECT * FROM deleted_users;

db.Table("deleted_users").Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Delete(&User{})
// DELETE FROM deleted_users WHERE name = 'jinzhu';

Check out From SubQuery for how to use SubQuery in FROM clause

NamingStrategy

GORM allows users change the default naming conventions by overriding the default NamingStrategy, which is used to build TableName, ColumnName, JoinTableName, RelationshipFKName, CheckerName, IndexName, Check out GORM Config for details

Column Name

Column db name uses the field's name's snake_case by convention.

type User struct {
  ID        uint      // column name is `id`
  Name      string    // column name is `name`
  Birthday  time.Time // column name is `birthday`
  CreatedAt time.Time // column name is `created_at`
}

You can override the column name with tag column or use NamingStrategy

type Animal struct {
  AnimalID int64     `gorm:"column:beast_id"`         // set name to `beast_id`
  Birthday time.Time `gorm:"column:day_of_the_beast"` // set name to `day_of_the_beast`
  Age      int64     `gorm:"column:age_of_the_beast"` // set name to `age_of_the_beast`
}

Timestamp Tracking

CreatedAt

For models having CreatedAt field, the field will be set to the current time when the record is first created if its value is zero

db.Create(&user) // set `CreatedAt` to current time

user2 := User{Name: "jinzhu", CreatedAt: time.Now()}
db.Create(&user2) // user2's `CreatedAt` won't be changed

// To change its value, you could use `Update`
db.Model(&user).Update("CreatedAt", time.Now())

You can disable the timestamp tracking by setting autoCreateTime tag to false, for example:

type User struct {
  CreatedAt time.Time `gorm:"autoCreateTime:false"`
}

UpdatedAt

For models having UpdatedAt field, the field will be set to the current time when the record is updated or created if its value is zero

db.Save(&user) // set `UpdatedAt` to current time

db.Model(&user).Update("name", "jinzhu") // will set `UpdatedAt` to current time

db.Model(&user).UpdateColumn("name", "jinzhu") // `UpdatedAt` won't be changed

user2 := User{Name: "jinzhu", UpdatedAt: time.Now()}
db.Create(&user2) // user2's `UpdatedAt` won't be changed when creating

user3 := User{Name: "jinzhu", UpdatedAt: time.Now()}
db.Save(&user3) // user3's `UpdatedAt` will change to current time when updating

You can disable the timestamp tracking by setting autoUpdateTime tag to false, for example:

type User struct {
  UpdatedAt time.Time `gorm:"autoUpdateTime:false"`
}

{% note %} NOTE GORM supports having multiple time tracking fields and track with UNIX (nano/milli) seconds, checkout Models for more details {% endnote %}

create


title: Create layout: page

Create Record

user := User{Name: "Jinzhu", Age: 18, Birthday: time.Now()}

result := db.Create(&user) // pass pointer of data to Create

user.ID             // returns inserted data's primary key
result.Error        // returns error
result.RowsAffected // returns inserted records count

Create Record With Selected Fields

Create a record and assign a value to the fields specified.

db.Select("Name", "Age", "CreatedAt").Create(&user)
// INSERT INTO `users` (`name`,`age`,`created_at`) VALUES ("jinzhu", 18, "2020-07-04 11:05:21.775")

Create a record and ignore the values for fields passed to omit.

db.Omit("Name", "Age", "CreatedAt").Create(&user)
// INSERT INTO `users` (`birthday`,`updated_at`) VALUES ("2020-01-01 00:00:00.000", "2020-07-04 11:05:21.775")

Batch Insert

To efficiently insert large number of records, pass a slice to the Create method. GORM will generate a single SQL statement to insert all the data and backfill primary key values, hook methods will be invoked too.

var users = []User{{Name: "jinzhu1"}, {Name: "jinzhu2"}, {Name: "jinzhu3"}}
db.Create(&users)

for _, user := range users {
  user.ID // 1,2,3
}

You can specify batch size when creating with CreateInBatches, e.g:

var users = []User{{Name: "jinzhu_1"}, ...., {Name: "jinzhu_10000"}}

// batch size 100
db.CreateInBatches(users, 100)

Batch Insert is also supported when using Upsert and Create With Associations

{% note warn %} NOTE initialize GORM with CreateBatchSize option, all INSERT will respect this option when creating record & associations {% endnote %}

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  CreateBatchSize: 1000,
})

db := db.Session(&gorm.Session{CreateBatchSize: 1000})

users = [5000]User{{Name: "jinzhu", Pets: []Pet{pet1, pet2, pet3}}...}

db.Create(&users)
// INSERT INTO users xxx (5 batches)
// INSERT INTO pets xxx (15 batches)

Create Hooks

GORM allows user defined hooks to be implemented for BeforeSave, BeforeCreate, AfterSave, AfterCreate. These hook method will be called when creating a record, refer Hooks for details on the lifecycle

func (u *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  u.UUID = uuid.New()

	if u.Role == "admin" {
		return errors.New("invalid role")
	}
	return
}

If you want to skip Hooks methods, you can use the SkipHooks session mode, for example:

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Create(&user)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Create(&users)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).CreateInBatches(users, 100)

Create From Map

GORM supports create from map[string]interface{} and []map[string]interface{}{}, e.g:

db.Model(&User{}).Create(map[string]interface{}{
  "Name": "jinzhu", "Age": 18,
})

// batch insert from `[]map[string]interface{}{}`
db.Model(&User{}).Create([]map[string]interface{}{
  {"Name": "jinzhu_1", "Age": 18},
  {"Name": "jinzhu_2", "Age": 20},
})

{% note warn %} NOTE When creating from map, hooks won't be invoked, associations won't be saved and primary key values won't be back filled {% endnote %}

Create From SQL Expression/Context Valuer

GORM allows insert data with SQL expression, there are two ways to achieve this goal, create from map[string]interface{} or Customized Data Types, for example:

// Create from map
db.Model(User{}).Create(map[string]interface{}{
  "Name": "jinzhu",
  "Location": clause.Expr{SQL: "ST_PointFromText(?)", Vars: []interface{}{"POINT(100 100)"}},
})
// INSERT INTO `users` (`name`,`location`) VALUES ("jinzhu",ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)"));

// Create from customized data type
type Location struct {
	X, Y int
}

// Scan implements the sql.Scanner interface
func (loc *Location) Scan(v interface{}) error {
  // Scan a value into struct from database driver
}

func (loc Location) GormDataType() string {
  return "geometry"
}

func (loc Location) GormValue(ctx context.Context, db *gorm.DB) clause.Expr {
  return clause.Expr{
    SQL:  "ST_PointFromText(?)",
    Vars: []interface{}{fmt.Sprintf("POINT(%d %d)", loc.X, loc.Y)},
  }
}

type User struct {
  Name     string
  Location Location
}

db.Create(&User{
  Name:     "jinzhu",
  Location: Location{X: 100, Y: 100},
})
// INSERT INTO `users` (`name`,`location`) VALUES ("jinzhu",ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)"))

Advanced

Create With Associations

When creating some data with associations, if its associations value is not zero-value, those associations will be upserted, and its Hooks methods will be invoked.

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number   string
  UserID   uint
}

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name       string
  CreditCard CreditCard
}

db.Create(&User{
  Name: "jinzhu",
  CreditCard: CreditCard{Number: "411111111111"}
})
// INSERT INTO `users` ...
// INSERT INTO `credit_cards` ...

You can skip saving associations with Select, Omit, for example:

db.Omit("CreditCard").Create(&user)

// skip all associations
db.Omit(clause.Associations).Create(&user)

Default Values

You can define default values for fields with tag default, for example:

type User struct {
  ID   int64
  Name string `gorm:"default:galeone"`
  Age  int64  `gorm:"default:18"`
}

Then the default value will be used when inserting into the database for zero-value fields

{% note warn %} NOTE Any zero value like 0, '', false won't be saved into the database for those fields defined default value, you might want to use pointer type or Scanner/Valuer to avoid this, for example: {% endnote %}

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name string
  Age  *int           `gorm:"default:18"`
  Active sql.NullBool `gorm:"default:true"`
}

{% note warn %} NOTE You have to setup the default tag for fields having default or virtual/generated value in database, if you want to skip a default value definition when migrating, you could use default:(-), for example: {% endnote %}

type User struct {
  ID        string `gorm:"default:uuid_generate_v3()"` // db func
  FirstName string
  LastName  string
  Age       uint8
  FullName  string `gorm:"->;type:GENERATED ALWAYS AS (concat(firstname,' ',lastname));default:(-);"`
}

When using virtual/generated value, you might need to disable its creating/updating permission, check out Field-Level Permission

Upsert / On Conflict

GORM provides compatible Upsert support for different databases

import "gorm.io/gorm/clause"

// Do nothing on conflict
db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{DoNothing: true}).Create(&user)

// Update columns to default value on `id` conflict
db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{
  Columns:   []clause.Column{{Name: "id"}},
  DoUpdates: clause.Assignments(map[string]interface{}{"role": "user"}),
}).Create(&users)
// MERGE INTO "users" USING *** WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT *** WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET ***; SQL Server
// INSERT INTO `users` *** ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ***; MySQL

// Use SQL expression
db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{
  Columns:   []clause.Column{{Name: "id"}},
  DoUpdates: clause.Assignments(map[string]interface{}{"count": gorm.Expr("GREATEST(count, VALUES(count))")}),
}).Create(&users)
// INSERT INTO `users` *** ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `count`=GREATEST(count, VALUES(count));

// Update columns to new value on `id` conflict
db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{
  Columns:   []clause.Column{{Name: "id"}},
  DoUpdates: clause.AssignmentColumns([]string{"name", "age"}),
}).Create(&users)
// MERGE INTO "users" USING *** WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT *** WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET "name"="excluded"."name"; SQL Server
// INSERT INTO "users" *** ON CONFLICT ("id") DO UPDATE SET "name"="excluded"."name", "age"="excluded"."age"; PostgreSQL
// INSERT INTO `users` *** ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `name`=VALUES(name),`age=VALUES(age); MySQL

// Update all columns, except primary keys, to new value on conflict
db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{
  UpdateAll: true,
}).Create(&users)
// INSERT INTO "users" *** ON CONFLICT ("id") DO UPDATE SET "name"="excluded"."name", "age"="excluded"."age", ...;

Also checkout FirstOrInit, FirstOrCreate on Advanced Query

Checkout Raw SQL and SQL Builder for more details

data_types


title: Customize Data Types layout: page

GORM provides few interfaces that allow users to define well-supported customized data types for GORM, takes json as an example

Implements Customized Data Type

Scanner / Valuer

The customized data type has to implement the Scanner and Valuer interfaces, so GORM knowns to how to receive/save it into the database

For example:

type JSON json.RawMessage

// Scan scan value into Jsonb, implements sql.Scanner interface
func (j *JSON) Scan(value interface{}) error {
  bytes, ok := value.([]byte)
  if !ok {
    return errors.New(fmt.Sprint("Failed to unmarshal JSONB value:", value))
  }

  result := json.RawMessage{}
  err := json.Unmarshal(bytes, &result)
  *j = JSON(result)
  return err
}

// Value return json value, implement driver.Valuer interface
func (j JSON) Value() (driver.Value, error) {
  if len(j) == 0 {
    return nil, nil
  }
  return json.RawMessage(j).MarshalJSON()
}

There are many third party packages implement the Scanner/Valuer interface, which can be used with GORM together, for example:

import (
  "github.com/google/uuid"
  "github.com/lib/pq"
)

type Post struct {
  ID     uuid.UUID `gorm:"type:uuid;default:uuid_generate_v4()"`
  Title  string
  Tags   pq.StringArray `gorm:"type:text[]"`
}

GormDataTypeInterface

GORM will read column's database type from tag type, if not found, will check if the struct implemented interface GormDBDataTypeInterface or GormDataTypeInterface and will use its result as data type

type GormDataTypeInterface interface {
  GormDataType() string
}

type GormDBDataTypeInterface interface {
  GormDBDataType(*gorm.DB, *schema.Field) string
}

The result of GormDataType will be used as the general data type and can be obtained from schema.Field's field DataType, which might be helpful when writing plugins or hooks for example:

func (JSON) GormDataType() string {
  return "json"
}

type User struct {
  Attrs JSON
}

func (user User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) {
  field := tx.Statement.Schema.LookUpField("Attrs")
  if field.DataType == "json" {
    // do something
  }
}

GormDBDataType usually returns the right data type for current driver when migrating, for example:

func (JSON) GormDBDataType(db *gorm.DB, field *schema.Field) string {
  // use field.Tag, field.TagSettings gets field's tags
  // checkout https://github.com/go-gorm/gorm/blob/master/schema/field.go for all options

  // returns different database type based on driver name
  switch db.Dialector.Name() {
  case "mysql", "sqlite":
    return "JSON"
  case "postgres":
    return "JSONB"
  }
  return ""
}

If the struct hasn't implemented the GormDBDataTypeInterface or GormDataTypeInterface interface, GORM will guess its data type from the struct's first field, for example, will use string for NullString

type NullString struct {
  String string // use the first field's data type
  Valid  bool
}

type User struct {
  Name NullString // data type will be string
}

GormValuerInterface

GORM provides a GormValuerInterface interface, which can allow to create/update from SQL Expr or value based on context, for example:

// GORM Valuer interface
type GormValuerInterface interface {
  GormValue(ctx context.Context, db *gorm.DB) clause.Expr
}

Create/Update from SQL Expr

type Location struct {
	X, Y int
}

func (loc Location) GormDataType() string {
  return "geometry"
}

func (loc Location) GormValue(ctx context.Context, db *gorm.DB) clause.Expr {
  return clause.Expr{
    SQL:  "ST_PointFromText(?)",
    Vars: []interface{}{fmt.Sprintf("POINT(%d %d)", loc.X, loc.Y)},
  }
}

// Scan implements the sql.Scanner interface
func (loc *Location) Scan(v interface{}) error {
  // Scan a value into struct from database driver
}

type User struct {
  ID       int
  Name     string
  Location Location
}

db.Create(&User{
  Name:     "jinzhu",
  Location: Location{X: 100, Y: 100},
})
// INSERT INTO `users` (`name`,`point`) VALUES ("jinzhu",ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)"))

db.Model(&User{ID: 1}).Updates(User{
  Name:  "jinzhu",
  Location: Location{X: 100, Y: 100},
})
// UPDATE `user_with_points` SET `name`="jinzhu",`location`=ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)") WHERE `id` = 1

You can also create/update with SQL Expr from map, checkout Create From SQL Expr and Update with SQL Expression for details

Value based on Context

If you want to create or update a value depends on current context, you can also implements the GormValuerInterface interface, for example:

type EncryptedString struct {
  Value string
}

func (es EncryptedString) GormValue(ctx context.Context, db *gorm.DB) (expr clause.Expr) {
  if encryptionKey, ok := ctx.Value("TenantEncryptionKey").(string); ok {
    return clause.Expr{SQL: "?", Vars: []interface{}{Encrypt(es.Value, encryptionKey)}}
  } else {
    db.AddError(errors.New("invalid encryption key"))
  }

  return
}

Clause Expression

If you want to build some query helpers, you can make a struct that implements the clause.Expression interface:

type Expression interface {
	Build(builder Builder)
}

Checkout JSON and SQL Builder for details, the following is an example of usage:

// Generates SQL with clause Expression
db.Find(&user, datatypes.JSONQuery("attributes").HasKey("role"))
db.Find(&user, datatypes.JSONQuery("attributes").HasKey("orgs", "orga"))

// MySQL
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE JSON_EXTRACT(`attributes`, '$.role') IS NOT NULL
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE JSON_EXTRACT(`attributes`, '$.orgs.orga') IS NOT NULL

// PostgreSQL
// SELECT * FROM "user" WHERE "attributes"::jsonb ? 'role'
// SELECT * FROM "user" WHERE "attributes"::jsonb -> 'orgs' ? 'orga'

db.Find(&user, datatypes.JSONQuery("attributes").Equals("jinzhu", "name"))
// MySQL
// SELECT * FROM `user` WHERE JSON_EXTRACT(`attributes`, '$.name') = "jinzhu"

// PostgreSQL
// SELECT * FROM "user" WHERE json_extract_path_text("attributes"::json,'name') = 'jinzhu'

Customized Data Types Collections

We created a Github repo for customized data types collections https://github.com/go-gorm/datatypes, pull request welcome ;)

dbresolver


title: DBResolver layout: page

DBResolver adds multiple databases support to GORM, the following features are supported:

  • Multiple sources, replicas
  • Read/Write Splitting
  • Automatic connection switching based on the working table/struct
  • Manual connection switching
  • Sources/Replicas load balancing
  • Works for RAW SQL
  • Transaction

https://github.com/go-gorm/dbresolver

Usage

import (
  "gorm.io/gorm"
  "gorm.io/plugin/dbresolver"
  "gorm.io/driver/mysql"
)

db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.Open("db1_dsn"), &gorm.Config{})

db.Use(dbresolver.Register(dbresolver.Config{
  // use `db2` as sources, `db3`, `db4` as replicas
  Sources:  []gorm.Dialector{mysql.Open("db2_dsn")},
  Replicas: []gorm.Dialector{mysql.Open("db3_dsn"), mysql.Open("db4_dsn")},
  // sources/replicas load balancing policy
  Policy: dbresolver.RandomPolicy{},
}).Register(dbresolver.Config{
  // use `db1` as sources (DB's default connection), `db5` as replicas for `User`, `Address`
  Replicas: []gorm.Dialector{mysql.Open("db5_dsn")},
}, &User{}, &Address{}).Register(dbresolver.Config{
  // use `db6`, `db7` as sources, `db8` as replicas for `orders`, `Product`
  Sources:  []gorm.Dialector{mysql.Open("db6_dsn"), mysql.Open("db7_dsn")},
  Replicas: []gorm.Dialector{mysql.Open("db8_dsn")},
}, "orders", &Product{}, "secondary"))

Automatic connection switching

DBResolver will automatically switch connection based on the working table/struct

For RAW SQL, DBResolver will extract the table name from the SQL to match the resolver, and will use sources unless the SQL begins with SELECT (excepts SELECT... FOR UPDATE), for example:

// `User` Resolver Examples
db.Table("users").Rows() // replicas `db5`
db.Model(&User{}).Find(&AdvancedUser{}) // replicas `db5`
db.Exec("update users set name = ?", "jinzhu") // sources `db1`
db.Raw("select name from users").Row().Scan(&name) // replicas `db5`
db.Create(&user) // sources `db1`
db.Delete(&User{}, "name = ?", "jinzhu") // sources `db1`
db.Table("users").Update("name", "jinzhu") // sources `db1`

// Global Resolver Examples
db.Find(&Pet{}) // replicas `db3`/`db4`
db.Save(&Pet{}) // sources `db2`

// Orders Resolver Examples
db.Find(&Order{}) // replicas `db8`
db.Table("orders").Find(&Report{}) // replicas `db8`

Read/Write Splitting

Read/Write splitting with DBResolver based on the current used GORM callbacks.

For Query, Row callback, will use replicas unless Write mode specified For Raw callback, statements are considered read-only and will use replicas if the SQL starts with SELECT

Manual connection switching

// Use Write Mode: read user from sources `db1`
db.Clauses(dbresolver.Write).First(&user)

// Specify Resolver: read user from `secondary`'s replicas: db8
db.Clauses(dbresolver.Use("secondary")).First(&user)

// Specify Resolver and Write Mode: read user from `secondary`'s sources: db6 or db7
db.Clauses(dbresolver.Use("secondary"), dbresolver.Write).First(&user)

Transaction

When using transaction, DBResolver will keep using the transaction and won't switch to sources/replicas based on configuration

But you can specifies which DB to use before starting a transaction, for example:

// Start transaction based on default replicas db
tx := DB.Clauses(dbresolver.Read).Begin()

// Start transaction based on default sources db
tx := DB.Clauses(dbresolver.Write).Begin()

// Start transaction based on `secondary`'s sources
tx := DB.Clauses(dbresolver.Use("secondary"), dbresolver.Write).Begin()

Load Balancing

GORM supports load balancing sources/replicas based on policy, the policy should be a struct implements following interface:

type Policy interface {
	Resolve([]gorm.ConnPool) gorm.ConnPool
}

Currently only the RandomPolicy implemented and it is the default option if no other policy specified.

Connection Pool

db.Use(
  dbresolver.Register(dbresolver.Config{ /* xxx */ }).
  SetConnMaxIdleTime(time.Hour).
  SetConnMaxLifetime(24 * time.Hour).
  SetMaxIdleConns(100).
  SetMaxOpenConns(200)
)

delete


title: Delete layout: page

Delete a Record

When deleting a record, the deleted value needs to have primary key or it will trigger a Batch Delete, for example:

// Email's ID is `10`
db.Delete(&email)
// DELETE from emails where id = 10;

// Delete with additional conditions
db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Delete(&email)
// DELETE from emails where id = 10 AND name = "jinzhu";

Delete with primary key

GORM allows to delete objects using primary key(s) with inline condition, it works with numbers, check out Query Inline Conditions for details

db.Delete(&User{}, 10)
// DELETE FROM users WHERE id = 10;

db.Delete(&User{}, "10")
// DELETE FROM users WHERE id = 10;

db.Delete(&users, []int{1,2,3})
// DELETE FROM users WHERE id IN (1,2,3);

Delete Hooks

GORM allows hooks BeforeDelete, AfterDelete, those methods will be called when deleting a record, refer Hooks for details

func (u *User) BeforeDelete(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
	if u.Role == "admin" {
		return errors.New("admin user not allowed to delete")
	}
	return
}

Batch Delete

The specified value has no primary value, GORM will perform a batch delete, it will delete all matched records

db.Where("email LIKE ?", "%jinzhu%").Delete(&Email{})
// DELETE from emails where email LIKE "%jinzhu%";

db.Delete(&Email{}, "email LIKE ?", "%jinzhu%")
// DELETE from emails where email LIKE "%jinzhu%";

Block Global Delete

If you perform a batch delete without any conditions, GORM WON'T run it, and will return ErrMissingWhereClause error

You have to use some conditions or use raw SQL or enable AllowGlobalUpdate mode, for example:

db.Delete(&User{}).Error // gorm.ErrMissingWhereClause

db.Where("1 = 1").Delete(&User{})
// DELETE FROM `users` WHERE 1=1

db.Exec("DELETE FROM users")
// DELETE FROM users

db.Session(&gorm.Session{AllowGlobalUpdate: true}).Delete(&User{})
// DELETE FROM users

Returning Data From Deleted Rows

Return deleted data, only works for database support Returning, for example:

// return all columns
var users []User
DB.Clauses(clause.Returning{}).Where("role = ?", "admin").Delete(&users)
// DELETE FROM `users` WHERE role = "admin" RETURNING *
// users => []User{{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu", Role: "admin", Salary: 100}, {ID: 2, Name: "jinzhu.2", Role: "admin", Salary: 1000}}

// return specified columns
DB.Clauses(clause.Returning{Columns: []clause.Column{{Name: "name"}, {Name: "salary"}}}).Where("role = ?", "admin").Delete(&users)
// DELETE FROM `users` WHERE role = "admin" RETURNING `name`, `salary`
// users => []User{{ID: 0, Name: "jinzhu", Role: "", Salary: 100}, {ID: 0, Name: "jinzhu.2", Role: "", Salary: 1000}}

Soft Delete

If your model includes a gorm.DeletedAt field (which is included in gorm.Model), it will get soft delete ability automatically!

When calling Delete, the record WON'T be removed from the database, but GORM will set the DeletedAt's value to the current time, and the data is not findable with normal Query methods anymore.

// user's ID is `111`
db.Delete(&user)
// UPDATE users SET deleted_at="2013-10-29 10:23" WHERE id = 111;

// Batch Delete
db.Where("age = ?", 20).Delete(&User{})
// UPDATE users SET deleted_at="2013-10-29 10:23" WHERE age = 20;

// Soft deleted records will be ignored when querying
db.Where("age = 20").Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 20 AND deleted_at IS NULL;

If you don't want to include gorm.Model, you can enable the soft delete feature like:

type User struct {
  ID      int
  Deleted gorm.DeletedAt
  Name    string
}

Find soft deleted records

You can find soft deleted records with Unscoped

db.Unscoped().Where("age = 20").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 20;

Delete permanently

You can delete matched records permanently with Unscoped

db.Unscoped().Delete(&order)
// DELETE FROM orders WHERE id=10;

Delete Flag

Use unix second as delete flag

import "gorm.io/plugin/soft_delete"

type User struct {
  ID        uint
  Name      string
  DeletedAt soft_delete.DeletedAt
}

// Query
SELECT * FROM users WHERE deleted_at = 0;

// Delete
UPDATE users SET deleted_at = /* current unix second */ WHERE ID = 1;

{% note warn %} INFO when using unique field with soft delete, you should create a composite index with the unix second based DeletedAt field, e.g:

import "gorm.io/plugin/soft_delete"

type User struct {
  ID        uint
  Name      string                `gorm:"uniqueIndex:udx_name"`
  DeletedAt soft_delete.DeletedAt `gorm:"uniqueIndex:udx_name"`
}

{% endnote %}

Use 1 / 0 as delete flag

import "gorm.io/plugin/soft_delete"

type User struct {
  ID    uint
  Name  string
  IsDel soft_delete.DeletedAt `gorm:"softDelete:flag"`
}

// Query
SELECT * FROM users WHERE is_del = 0;

// Delete
UPDATE users SET is_del = 1 WHERE ID = 1;

error_handling


title: Error Handling layout: page

In Go, error handling is important.

You are encouraged to do error check after any Finisher Methods

Error Handling

Error handling in GORM is different than idiomatic Go code because of its chainable API.

If any error occurs, GORM will set *gorm.DB's Error field, you need to check it like this:

if err := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&user).Error; err != nil {
  // error handling...
}

Or

if result := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&user); result.Error != nil {
  // error handling...
}

ErrRecordNotFound

GORM returns ErrRecordNotFound when failed to find data with First, Last, Take, if there are several errors happened, you can check the ErrRecordNotFound error with errors.Is, for example:

// Check if returns RecordNotFound error
err := db.First(&user, 100).Error
errors.Is(err, gorm.ErrRecordNotFound)

Errors

Errors List

generic_interface


title: Generic database interface sql.DB layout: page

GORM provides the method DB which returns a generic database interface *sql.DB from the current *gorm.DB

// Get generic database object sql.DB to use its functions
sqlDB, err := db.DB()

// Ping
sqlDB.Ping()

// Close
sqlDB.Close()

// Returns database statistics
sqlDB.Stats()

{% note warn %} NOTE If the underlying database connection is not a *sql.DB, like in a transaction, it will returns error {% endnote %}

Connection Pool

// Get generic database object sql.DB to use its functions
sqlDB, err := db.DB()

// SetMaxIdleConns sets the maximum number of connections in the idle connection pool.
sqlDB.SetMaxIdleConns(10)

// SetMaxOpenConns sets the maximum number of open connections to the database.
sqlDB.SetMaxOpenConns(100)

// SetConnMaxLifetime sets the maximum amount of time a connection may be reused.
sqlDB.SetConnMaxLifetime(time.Hour)

gorm_config


title: GORM Config layout: page

GORM provides Config can be used during initialization

type Config struct {
  SkipDefaultTransaction   bool
  NamingStrategy           schema.Namer
  Logger                   logger.Interface
  NowFunc                  func() time.Time
  DryRun                   bool
  PrepareStmt              bool
  DisableNestedTransaction bool
  AllowGlobalUpdate        bool
  DisableAutomaticPing     bool
  DisableForeignKeyConstraintWhenMigrating bool
}

SkipDefaultTransaction

GORM perform write (create/update/delete) operations run inside a transaction to ensure data consistency, you can disable it during initialization if it is not required

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  SkipDefaultTransaction: true,
})

NamingStrategy

GORM allows users to change the naming conventions by overriding the default NamingStrategy which need to implements interface Namer

type Namer interface {
	TableName(table string) string
	SchemaName(table string) string
	ColumnName(table, column string) string
	JoinTableName(table string) string
	RelationshipFKName(Relationship) string
	CheckerName(table, column string) string
	IndexName(table, column string) string
}

The default NamingStrategy also provides few options, like:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  NamingStrategy: schema.NamingStrategy{
    TablePrefix: "t_",   // table name prefix, table for `User` would be `t_users`
    SingularTable: true, // use singular table name, table for `User` would be `user` with this option enabled
    NoLowerCase: true, // skip the snake_casing of names
    NameReplacer: strings.NewReplacer("CID", "Cid"), // use name replacer to change struct/field name before convert it to db name
  },
})

Logger

Allow to change GORM's default logger by overriding this option, refer Logger for more details

NowFunc

Change the function to be used when creating a new timestamp

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  NowFunc: func() time.Time {
    return time.Now().Local()
  },
})

DryRun

Generate SQL without executing, can be used to prepare or test generated SQL, refer Session for details

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  DryRun: false,
})

PrepareStmt

PreparedStmt creates a prepared statement when executing any SQL and caches them to speed up future calls, refer Session for details

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  PrepareStmt: false,
})

DisableNestedTransaction

When using Transaction method inside a db transaction, GORM will use SavePoint(savedPointName), RollbackTo(savedPointName) to give you the nested transaction support, you could disable it by using the DisableNestedTransaction option, refer Session for details

AllowGlobalUpdate

Enable global update/delete, refer Session for details

DisableAutomaticPing

GORM automatically ping database after initialized to check database availability, disable it by setting it to true

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  DisableAutomaticPing: true,
})

DisableForeignKeyConstraintWhenMigrating

GORM creates database foreign key constraints automatically when AutoMigrate or CreateTable, disable this by setting it to true, refer Migration for details

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  DisableForeignKeyConstraintWhenMigrating: true,
})

has_many


title: Has Many layout: page

Has Many

A has many association sets up a one-to-many connection with another model, unlike has one, the owner could have zero or many instances of models.

For example, if your application includes users and credit card, and each user can have many credit cards.

// User has many CreditCards, UserID is the foreign key
type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCards []CreditCard
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number string
  UserID uint
}

Override Foreign Key

To define a has many relationship, a foreign key must exist. The default foreign key's name is the owner's type name plus the name of its primary key field

For example, to define a model that belongs to User, the foreign key should be UserID.

To use another field as foreign key, you can customize it with a foreignKey tag, e.g:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCards []CreditCard `gorm:"foreignKey:UserRefer"`
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number    string
  UserRefer uint
}

Override References

GORM usually uses the owner's primary key as the foreign key's value, for the above example, it is the User's ID,

When you assign credit cards to a user, GORM will save the user's ID into credit cards' UserID field.

You are able to change it with tag references, e.g:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  MemberNumber string
  CreditCards  []CreditCard `gorm:"foreignKey:UserNumber;references:MemberNumber"`
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number     string
  UserNumber string
}

Polymorphism Association

GORM supports polymorphism association for has one and has many, it will save owned entity's table name into polymorphic type's field, primary key value into the polymorphic field

type Dog struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
  Toys []Toy `gorm:"polymorphic:Owner;"`
}

type Toy struct {
  ID        int
  Name      string
  OwnerID   int
  OwnerType string
}

db.Create(&Dog{Name: "dog1", Toys: []Toy{{Name: "toy1"}, {Name: "toy2"}}})
// INSERT INTO `dogs` (`name`) VALUES ("dog1")
// INSERT INTO `toys` (`name`,`owner_id`,`owner_type`) VALUES ("toy1","1","dogs"), ("toy2","1","dogs")

You can change the polymorphic type value with tag polymorphicValue, for example:

type Dog struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
  Toys []Toy `gorm:"polymorphic:Owner;polymorphicValue:master"`
}

type Toy struct {
  ID        int
  Name      string
  OwnerID   int
  OwnerType string
}

db.Create(&Dog{Name: "dog1", Toy: []Toy{{Name: "toy1"}, {Name: "toy2"}}})
// INSERT INTO `dogs` (`name`) VALUES ("dog1")
// INSERT INTO `toys` (`name`,`owner_id`,`owner_type`) VALUES ("toy1","1","master"), ("toy2","1","master")

CRUD with Has Many

Please checkout Association Mode for working with has many relations

Eager Loading

GORM allows eager loading has many associations with Preload, refer Preloading (Eager loading) for details

Self-Referential Has Many

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name      string
  ManagerID *uint
  Team      []User `gorm:"foreignkey:ManagerID"`
}

FOREIGN KEY Constraints

You can setup OnUpdate, OnDelete constraints with tag constraint, it will be created when migrating with GORM, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCards []CreditCard `gorm:"constraint:OnUpdate:CASCADE,OnDelete:SET NULL;"`
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number string
  UserID uint
}

You are also allowed to delete selected has many associations with Select when deleting, checkout Delete with Select for details

has_one


title: Has One layout: page

Has One

A has one association sets up a one-to-one connection with another model, but with somewhat different semantics (and consequences). This association indicates that each instance of a model contains or possesses one instance of another model.

For example, if your application includes users and credit cards, and each user can only have one credit card.

// User has one CreditCard, CreditCardID is the foreign key
type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCard CreditCard
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number string
  UserID uint
}

Override Foreign Key

For a has one relationship, a foreign key field must also exist, the owner will save the primary key of the model belongs to it into this field.

The field's name is usually generated with has one model's type plus its primary key, for the above example it is UserID.

When you give a credit card to the user, it will save the User's ID into its UserID field.

If you want to use another field to save the relationship, you can change it with tag foreignKey, e.g:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCard CreditCard `gorm:"foreignKey:UserName"`
  // use UserName as foreign key
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number   string
  UserName string
}

Override References

By default, the owned entity will save the has one model's primary key into a foreign key, you could change to save another field's value, like using Name for the below example.

You are able to change it with tag references, e.g:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name       string     `gorm:"index"`
  CreditCard CreditCard `gorm:"foreignkey:UserName;references:name"`
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number   string
  UserName string
}

Polymorphism Association

GORM supports polymorphism association for has one and has many, it will save owned entity's table name into polymorphic type's field, primary key into the polymorphic field

type Cat struct {
  ID    int
  Name  string
  Toy   Toy `gorm:"polymorphic:Owner;"`
}

type Dog struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
  Toy  Toy `gorm:"polymorphic:Owner;"`
}

type Toy struct {
  ID        int
  Name      string
  OwnerID   int
  OwnerType string
}

db.Create(&Dog{Name: "dog1", Toy: Toy{Name: "toy1"}})
// INSERT INTO `dogs` (`name`) VALUES ("dog1")
// INSERT INTO `toys` (`name`,`owner_id`,`owner_type`) VALUES ("toy1","1","dogs")

You can change the polymorphic type value with tag polymorphicValue, for example:

type Dog struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
  Toy  Toy `gorm:"polymorphic:Owner;polymorphicValue:master"`
}

type Toy struct {
  ID        int
  Name      string
  OwnerID   int
  OwnerType string
}

db.Create(&Dog{Name: "dog1", Toy: Toy{Name: "toy1"}})
// INSERT INTO `dogs` (`name`) VALUES ("dog1")
// INSERT INTO `toys` (`name`,`owner_id`,`owner_type`) VALUES ("toy1","1","master")

CRUD with Has One

Please checkout Association Mode for working with has one relations

Eager Loading

GORM allows eager loading has one associations with Preload or Joins, refer Preloading (Eager loading) for details

Self-Referential Has One

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name      string
  ManagerID *uint
  Manager   *User
}

FOREIGN KEY Constraints

You can setup OnUpdate, OnDelete constraints with tag constraint, it will be created when migrating with GORM, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCard CreditCard `gorm:"constraint:OnUpdate:CASCADE,OnDelete:SET NULL;"`
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number string
  UserID uint
}

You are also allowed to delete selected has one associations with Select when deleting, checkout Delete with Select for details

hints


title: Hints layout: page

GORM provides optimizer/index/comment hints support

https://github.com/go-gorm/hints

Optimizer Hints

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.New("hint")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * /*+ hint */ FROM `users`

Index Hints

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.UseIndex("idx_user_name")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` USE INDEX (`idx_user_name`)

db.Clauses(hints.ForceIndex("idx_user_name", "idx_user_id").ForJoin()).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` FORCE INDEX FOR JOIN (`idx_user_name`,`idx_user_id`)"

db.Clauses(
	hints.ForceIndex("idx_user_name", "idx_user_id").ForOrderBy(),
	hints.IgnoreIndex("idx_user_name").ForGroupBy(),
).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` FORCE INDEX FOR ORDER BY (`idx_user_name`,`idx_user_id`) IGNORE INDEX FOR GROUP BY (`idx_user_name`)"

Comment Hints

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.Comment("select", "master")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT /*master*/ * FROM `users`;

db.Clauses(hints.CommentBefore("insert", "node2")).Create(&user)
// /*node2*/ INSERT INTO `users` ...;

db.Clauses(hints.CommentAfter("select", "node2")).Create(&user)
// /*node2*/ INSERT INTO `users` ...;

db.Clauses(hints.CommentAfter("where", "hint")).Find(&User{}, "id = ?", 1)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE id = ? /* hint */

hooks


title: Hooks layout: page

Object Life Cycle

Hooks are functions that are called before or after creation/querying/updating/deletion.

If you have defined specified methods for a model, it will be called automatically when creating, updating, querying, deleting, and if any callback returns an error, GORM will stop future operations and rollback current transaction.

The type of hook methods should be func(*gorm.DB) error

Hooks

Creating an object

Available hooks for creating

// begin transaction
BeforeSave
BeforeCreate
// save before associations
// insert into database
// save after associations
AfterCreate
AfterSave
// commit or rollback transaction

Code Example:

func (u *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  u.UUID = uuid.New()

  if !u.IsValid() {
    err = errors.New("can't save invalid data")
  }
  return
}

func (u *User) AfterCreate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if u.ID == 1 {
    tx.Model(u).Update("role", "admin")
  }
  return
}

{% note warn %} NOTE Save/Delete operations in GORM are running in transactions by default, so changes made in that transaction are not visible until it is committed, if you return any error in your hooks, the change will be rollbacked {% endnote %}

func (u *User) AfterCreate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if !u.IsValid() {
    return errors.New("rollback invalid user")
  }
  return nil
}

Updating an object

Available hooks for updating

// begin transaction
BeforeSave
BeforeUpdate
// save before associations
// update database
// save after associations
AfterUpdate
AfterSave
// commit or rollback transaction

Code Example:

func (u *User) BeforeUpdate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if u.readonly() {
    err = errors.New("read only user")
  }
  return
}

// Updating data in same transaction
func (u *User) AfterUpdate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if u.Confirmed {
    tx.Model(&Address{}).Where("user_id = ?", u.ID).Update("verfied", true)
  }
  return
}

Deleting an object

Available hooks for deleting

// begin transaction
BeforeDelete
// delete from database
AfterDelete
// commit or rollback transaction

Code Example:

// Updating data in same transaction
func (u *User) AfterDelete(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if u.Confirmed {
    tx.Model(&Address{}).Where("user_id = ?", u.ID).Update("invalid", false)
  }
  return
}

Querying an object

Available hooks for querying

// load data from database
// Preloading (eager loading)
AfterFind

Code Example:

func (u *User) AfterFind(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if u.MemberShip == "" {
    u.MemberShip = "user"
  }
  return
}

Modify current operation

func (u *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  // Modify current operation through tx.Statement, e.g:
  tx.Statement.Select("Name", "Age")
  tx.Statement.AddClause(clause.OnConflict{DoNothing: true})

  // tx is new session mode with the `NewDB` option
  // operations based on it will run inside same transaction but without any current conditions
  var role Role
  err := tx.First(&role, "name = ?", user.Role).Error
  // SELECT * FROM roles WHERE name = "admin"
  // ...
  return err
}

index


title: GORM Guides layout: page

The fantastic ORM library for Golang aims to be developer friendly.

Overview

  • Full-Featured ORM
  • Associations (Has One, Has Many, Belongs To, Many To Many, Polymorphism, Single-table inheritance)
  • Hooks (Before/After Create/Save/Update/Delete/Find)
  • Eager loading with Preload, Joins
  • Transactions, Nested Transactions, Save Point, RollbackTo to Saved Point
  • Context, Prepared Statement Mode, DryRun Mode
  • Batch Insert, FindInBatches, Find/Create with Map, CRUD with SQL Expr and Context Valuer
  • SQL Builder, Upsert, Locking, Optimizer/Index/Comment Hints, Named Argument, SubQuery
  • Composite Primary Key, Indexes, Constraints
  • Auto Migrations
  • Logger
  • Extendable, flexible plugin API: Database Resolver (Multiple Databases, Read/Write Splitting) / Prometheus...
  • Every feature comes with tests
  • Developer Friendly

Install

go get -u gorm.io/gorm
go get -u gorm.io/driver/sqlite

Quick Start

package main

import (
  "gorm.io/gorm"
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlite"
)

type Product struct {
  gorm.Model
  Code  string
  Price uint
}

func main() {
  db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{})
  if err != nil {
    panic("failed to connect database")
  }

  // Migrate the schema
  db.AutoMigrate(&Product{})

  // Create
  db.Create(&Product{Code: "D42", Price: 100})

  // Read
  var product Product
  db.First(&product, 1) // find product with integer primary key
  db.First(&product, "code = ?", "D42") // find product with code D42

  // Update - update product's price to 200
  db.Model(&product).Update("Price", 200)
  // Update - update multiple fields
  db.Model(&product).Updates(Product{Price: 200, Code: "F42"}) // non-zero fields
  db.Model(&product).Updates(map[string]interface{}{"Price": 200, "Code": "F42"})

  // Delete - delete product
  db.Delete(&product, 1)
}

indexes


title: Database Indexes layout: page

GORM allows create database index with tag index, uniqueIndex, those indexes will be created when AutoMigrate or CreateTable with GORM

Index Tag

GORM accepts lots of index settings, like class, type, where, comment, expression, sort, collate, option

Check the following example for how to use it

type User struct {
	Name  string `gorm:"index"`
	Name2 string `gorm:"index:idx_name,unique"`
	Name3 string `gorm:"index:,sort:desc,collate:utf8,type:btree,length:10,where:name3 != 'jinzhu'"`
	Name4 string `gorm:"uniqueIndex"`
	Age   int64  `gorm:"index:,class:FULLTEXT,comment:hello \\, world,where:age > 10"`
	Age2  int64  `gorm:"index:,expression:ABS(age)"`
}

// MySQL option
type User struct {
	Name string `gorm:"index:,class:FULLTEXT,option:WITH PARSER ngram INVISIBLE"`
}

// PostgreSQL option
type User struct {
	Name string `gorm:"index:,option:CONCURRENTLY"`
}

uniqueIndex

tag uniqueIndex works similar like index, it equals to index:,unique

type User struct {
	Name1 string `gorm:"uniqueIndex"`
	Name2 string `gorm:"uniqueIndex:idx_name,sort:desc"`
}

Composite Indexes

Use same index name for two fields will creates composite indexes, for example:

// create composite index `idx_member` with columns `name`, `number`
type User struct {
	Name   string `gorm:"index:idx_member"`
	Number string `gorm:"index:idx_member"`
}

Fields Priority

The column order of a composite index has an impact on its performance so it must be chosen carefully

You can specify the order with the priority option, the default priority value is 10, if priority value is the same, the order will be based on model struct's field index

type User struct {
	Name   string `gorm:"index:idx_member"`
	Number string `gorm:"index:idx_member"`
}
// column order: name, number

type User struct {
	Name   string `gorm:"index:idx_member,priority:2"`
	Number string `gorm:"index:idx_member,priority:1"`
}
// column order: number, name

type User struct {
	Name   string `gorm:"index:idx_member,priority:12"`
	Number string `gorm:"index:idx_member"`
}
// column order: number, name

Shared composite indexes

If you are creating shared composite indexes with an embedding struct, you can't specify the index name, as embedding the struct more than once results in the duplicated index name in db.

In this case, you can use index tag composite, it means the id of the composite index. All fields which have the same composite id of the struct are put together to the same index, just like the original rule. But the improvement is it lets the most derived/embedding struct generates the name of index by NamingStrategy. For example:

type Foo struct {
  IndexA int `gorm:"index:,unique,composite:myname"`
  IndexB int `gorm:"index:,unique,composite:myname"`
}

If the table Foo is created, the name of composite index will be idx_foo_myname.

type Bar0 struct {
  Foo
}

type Bar1 struct {
  Foo
}

Respectively, the name of composite index is idx_bar0_myname and idx_bar1_myname.

composite only works if not specify the name of index.

Multiple indexes

A field accepts multiple index, uniqueIndex tags that will create multiple indexes on a field

type UserIndex struct {
	OID          int64  `gorm:"index:idx_id;index:idx_oid,unique"`
	MemberNumber string `gorm:"index:idx_id"`
}

logger


title: Logger layout: page

Logger

Gorm has a default logger implementation, it will print Slow SQL and happening errors by default

The logger accepts few options, you can customize it during initialization, for example:

newLogger := logger.New(
  log.New(os.Stdout, "\r\n", log.LstdFlags), // io writer
  logger.Config{
    SlowThreshold:              time.Second,   // Slow SQL threshold
    LogLevel:                   logger.Silent, // Log level
    IgnoreRecordNotFoundError: true,           // Ignore ErrRecordNotFound error for logger
    Colorful:                  false,          // Disable color
  },
)

// Globally mode
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{
  Logger: newLogger,
})

// Continuous session mode
tx := db.Session(&Session{Logger: newLogger})
tx.First(&user)
tx.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)

Log Levels

GORM defined log levels: Silent, Error, Warn, Info

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{
  Logger: logger.Default.LogMode(logger.Silent),
})

Debug

Debug a single operation, change current operation's log level to logger.Info

db.Debug().Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&User{})

Customize Logger

Refer to GORM's default logger for how to define your own one

The logger needs to implement the following interface, it accepts context, so you can use it for log tracing

type Interface interface {
	LogMode(LogLevel) Interface
	Info(context.Context, string, ...interface{})
	Warn(context.Context, string, ...interface{})
	Error(context.Context, string, ...interface{})
	Trace(ctx context.Context, begin time.Time, fc func() (sql string, rowsAffected int64), err error)
}

many_to_many


title: Many To Many layout: page

Many To Many

Many to Many add a join table between two models.

For example, if your application includes users and languages, and a user can speak many languages, and many users can speak a specified language.

// User has and belongs to many languages, `user_languages` is the join table
type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Languages []Language `gorm:"many2many:user_languages;"`
}

type Language struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name string
}

When using GORM AutoMigrate to create a table for User, GORM will create the join table automatically

Back-Reference

// User has and belongs to many languages, use `user_languages` as join table
type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Languages []*Language `gorm:"many2many:user_languages;"`
}

type Language struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name string
  Users []*User `gorm:"many2many:user_languages;"`
}

Override Foreign Key

For a many2many relationship, the join table owns the foreign key which references two models, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Languages []Language `gorm:"many2many:user_languages;"`
}

type Language struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name string
}

// Join Table: user_languages
//   foreign key: user_id, reference: users.id
//   foreign key: language_id, reference: languages.id

To override them, you can use tag foreignKey, references, joinForeignKey, joinReferences, not necessary to use them together, you can just use one of them to override some foreign keys/references

type User struct {
	gorm.Model
	Profiles []Profile `gorm:"many2many:user_profiles;foreignKey:Refer;joinForeignKey:UserReferID;References:UserRefer;joinReferences:ProfileRefer"`
	Refer    uint      `gorm:"index:,unique"`
}

type Profile struct {
	gorm.Model
	Name      string
	UserRefer uint `gorm:"index:,unique"`
}

// Which creates join table: user_profiles
//   foreign key: user_refer_id, reference: users.refer
//   foreign key: profile_refer, reference: profiles.user_refer

{% note warn %} NOTE: Some databases only allow create database foreign keys that reference on a field having unique index, so you need to specify the unique index tag if you are creating database foreign keys when migrating {% endnote %}

Self-Referential Many2Many

Self-referencing many2many relationship

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
	Friends []*User `gorm:"many2many:user_friends"`
}

// Which creates join table: user_friends
//   foreign key: user_id, reference: users.id
//   foreign key: friend_id, reference: users.id

Eager Loading

GORM allows eager loading has many associations with Preload, refer Preloading (Eager loading) for details

CRUD with Many2Many

Please checkout Association Mode for working with many2many relations

Customize JoinTable

JoinTable can be a full-featured model, like having Soft DeleteHooks supports and more fields, you can setup it with SetupJoinTable, for example:

{% note warn %} NOTE: Customized join table's foreign keys required to be composited primary keys or composited unique index {% endnote %}

type Person struct {
  ID        int
  Name      string
  Addresses []Address `gorm:"many2many:person_addresses;"`
}

type Address struct {
  ID   uint
  Name string
}

type PersonAddress struct {
  PersonID  int `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  AddressID int `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  CreatedAt time.Time
  DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt
}

func (PersonAddress) BeforeCreate(db *gorm.DB) error {
  // ...
}

// Change model Person's field Addresses' join table to PersonAddress
// PersonAddress must defined all required foreign keys or it will raise error
err := db.SetupJoinTable(&Person{}, "Addresses", &PersonAddress{})

FOREIGN KEY Constraints

You can setup OnUpdate, OnDelete constraints with tag constraint, it will be created when migrating with GORM, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Languages []Language `gorm:"many2many:user_speaks;"`
}

type Language struct {
  Code string `gorm:"primarykey"`
  Name string
}

// CREATE TABLE `user_speaks` (`user_id` integer,`language_code` text,PRIMARY KEY (`user_id`,`language_code`),CONSTRAINT `fk_user_speaks_user` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`) REFERENCES `users`(`id`) ON DELETE SET NULL ON UPDATE CASCADE,CONSTRAINT `fk_user_speaks_language` FOREIGN KEY (`language_code`) REFERENCES `languages`(`code`) ON DELETE SET NULL ON UPDATE CASCADE);

You are also allowed to delete selected many2many relations with Select when deleting, checkout Delete with Select for details

Composite Foreign Keys

If you are using Composite Primary Keys for your models, GORM will enable composite foreign keys by default

You are allowed to override the default foreign keys, to specify multiple foreign keys, just separate those keys' name by commas, for example:

type Tag struct {
  ID     uint   `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  Locale string `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  Value  string
}

type Blog struct {
  ID         uint   `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  Locale     string `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  Subject    string
  Body       string
  Tags       []Tag `gorm:"many2many:blog_tags;"`
  LocaleTags []Tag `gorm:"many2many:locale_blog_tags;ForeignKey:id,locale;References:id"`
  SharedTags []Tag `gorm:"many2many:shared_blog_tags;ForeignKey:id;References:id"`
}

// Join Table: blog_tags
//   foreign key: blog_id, reference: blogs.id
//   foreign key: blog_locale, reference: blogs.locale
//   foreign key: tag_id, reference: tags.id
//   foreign key: tag_locale, reference: tags.locale

// Join Table: locale_blog_tags
//   foreign key: blog_id, reference: blogs.id
//   foreign key: blog_locale, reference: blogs.locale
//   foreign key: tag_id, reference: tags.id

// Join Table: shared_blog_tags
//   foreign key: blog_id, reference: blogs.id
//   foreign key: tag_id, reference: tags.id

Also check out Composite Primary Keys

method_chaining


title: Method Chaining layout: page

GORM allows method chaining, so you can write code like this:

db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Where("age = ?", 18).First(&user)

There are three kinds of methods in GORM: Chain Method, Finisher Method, New Session Method.

After a Chain method, Finisher Method, GORM returns an initialized *gorm.DB instance, which is NOT safe to reuse anymore, or new generated SQL might be polluted by the previous conditions, for example:

queryDB := DB.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu")

queryDB.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu"

queryDB.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu2").First(&user2)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND name = "jinzhu2"

In order to reuse a initialized *gorm.DB instance, you can use a New Session Method to create a shareable *gorm.DB, e.g:

queryDB := DB.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Session(&gorm.Session{})

queryDB.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu"

queryDB.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu2").First(&user2)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu2"

Chain Method

Chain methods are methods to modify or add Clauses to current Statement, like:

Where, Select, Omit, Joins, Scopes, Preload, Raw (Raw can't be used with other chainable methods to build SQL)...

Here is the full lists, also check out the SQL Builder for more details about Clauses.

Finisher Method

Finishers are immediate methods that execute registered callbacks, which will generate and execute SQL, like those methods:

Create, First, Find, Take, Save, Update, Delete, Scan, Row, Rows...

Check out the full lists here.

New Session Method

GORM defined Session, WithContext, Debug methods as New Session Method, refer Session for more details.

After a Chain method, Finisher Method, GORM returns an initialized *gorm.DB instance, which is NOT safe to reuse anymore, you should use a New Session Method to mark the *gorm.DB as shareable.

Let's explain it with examples:

Example 1:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{})
// db is a new initialized `*gorm.DB`, which is safe to reuse

db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Where("age = ?", 18).Find(&users)
// `Where("name = ?", "jinzhu")` is the first chain method call, it will create an initialized `*gorm.DB` instance, aka `*gorm.Statement`
// `Where("age = ?", 18)` is the second chain method call, it reuses the above `*gorm.Statement`, adds new condition `age = 18` to it
// `Find(&users)` is a finisher method, it executes registered Query Callbacks, which generates and runs the following SQL:
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age = 18;

db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu2").Where("age = ?", 20).Find(&users)
// `Where("name = ?", "jinzhu2")` is also the first chain method call, it creates a new `*gorm.Statement`
// `Where("age = ?", 20)` reuses the above `Statement`, and add conditions to it
// `Find(&users)` is a finisher method, it executes registered Query Callbacks, generates and runs the following SQL:
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu2' AND age = 20;

db.Find(&users)
// `Find(&users)` is a finisher method call, it also creates a new `Statement` and executes registered Query Callbacks, generates and runs the following SQL:
// SELECT * FROM users;

(Bad) Example 2:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{})
// db is a new initialized *gorm.DB, which is safe to reuse

tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu")
// `Where("name = ?", "jinzhu")` returns an initialized `*gorm.Statement` instance after chain method `Where`, which is NOT safe to reuse

// good case
tx.Where("age = ?", 18).Find(&users)
// `tx.Where("age = ?", 18)` use the above `*gorm.Statement`, adds new condition to it
// `Find(&users)` is a finisher method call, it executes registered Query Callbacks, generates and runs the following SQL:
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age = 18

// bad case
tx.Where("age = ?", 28).Find(&users)
// `tx.Where("age = ?", 18)` also use the above `*gorm.Statement`, and keep adding conditions to it
// So the following generated SQL is polluted by the previous conditions:
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age = 18 AND age = 28;

Example 3:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{})
// db is a new initialized *gorm.DB, which is safe to reuse

tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Session(&gorm.Session{})
tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").WithContext(context.Background())
tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Debug()
// `Session`, `WithContext`, `Debug` returns `*gorm.DB` marked as safe to reuse, newly initialized `*gorm.Statement` based on it keeps current conditions

// good case
tx.Where("age = ?", 18).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age = 18

// good case
tx.Where("age = ?", 28).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age = 28;

migration


title: Migration layout: page

Auto Migration

Automatically migrate your schema, to keep your schema up to date.

{% note warn %} NOTE: AutoMigrate will create tables, missing foreign keys, constraints, columns and indexes. It will change existing column's type if its size, precision, nullable changed. It WON'T delete unused columns to protect your data. {% endnote %}

db.AutoMigrate(&User{})

db.AutoMigrate(&User{}, &Product{}, &Order{})

// Add table suffix when creating tables
db.Set("gorm:table_options", "ENGINE=InnoDB").AutoMigrate(&User{})

{% note warn %} NOTE AutoMigrate creates database foreign key constraints automatically, you can disable this feature during initialization, for example: {% endnote %}

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  DisableForeignKeyConstraintWhenMigrating: true,
})

Migrator Interface

GORM provides a migrator interface, which contains unified API interfaces for each database that could be used to build your database-independent migrations, for example:

SQLite doesn't support ALTER COLUMN, DROP COLUMN, GORM will create a new table as the one you are trying to change, copy all data, drop the old table, rename the new table

MySQL doesn't support rename column, index for some versions, GORM will perform different SQL based on the MySQL version you are using

type Migrator interface {
  // AutoMigrate
  AutoMigrate(dst ...interface{}) error

  // Database
  CurrentDatabase() string
  FullDataTypeOf(*schema.Field) clause.Expr

  // Tables
  CreateTable(dst ...interface{}) error
  DropTable(dst ...interface{}) error
  HasTable(dst interface{}) bool
  RenameTable(oldName, newName interface{}) error
  GetTables() (tableList []string, err error)

  // Columns
  AddColumn(dst interface{}, field string) error
  DropColumn(dst interface{}, field string) error
  AlterColumn(dst interface{}, field string) error
  MigrateColumn(dst interface{}, field *schema.Field, columnType ColumnType) error
  HasColumn(dst interface{}, field string) bool
  RenameColumn(dst interface{}, oldName, field string) error
  ColumnTypes(dst interface{}) ([]ColumnType, error)

  // Constraints
  CreateConstraint(dst interface{}, name string) error
  DropConstraint(dst interface{}, name string) error
  HasConstraint(dst interface{}, name string) bool

  // Indexes
  CreateIndex(dst interface{}, name string) error
  DropIndex(dst interface{}, name string) error
  HasIndex(dst interface{}, name string) bool
  RenameIndex(dst interface{}, oldName, newName string) error
}

CurrentDatabase

Returns current using database name

db.Migrator().CurrentDatabase()

Tables

// Create table for `User`
db.Migrator().CreateTable(&User{})

// Append "ENGINE=InnoDB" to the creating table SQL for `User`
db.Set("gorm:table_options", "ENGINE=InnoDB").Migrator().CreateTable(&User{})

// Check table for `User` exists or not
db.Migrator().HasTable(&User{})
db.Migrator().HasTable("users")

// Drop table if exists (will ignore or delete foreign key constraints when dropping)
db.Migrator().DropTable(&User{})
db.Migrator().DropTable("users")

// Rename old table to new table
db.Migrator().RenameTable(&User{}, &UserInfo{})
db.Migrator().RenameTable("users", "user_infos")

Columns

type User struct {
  Name string
}

// Add name field
db.Migrator().AddColumn(&User{}, "Name")
// Drop name field
db.Migrator().DropColumn(&User{}, "Name")
// Alter name field
db.Migrator().AlterColumn(&User{}, "Name")
// Check column exists
db.Migrator().HasColumn(&User{}, "Name")

type User struct {
  Name    string
  NewName string
}

// Rename column to new name
db.Migrator().RenameColumn(&User{}, "Name", "NewName")
db.Migrator().RenameColumn(&User{}, "name", "new_name")

// ColumnTypes
db.Migrator().ColumnTypes(&User{}) ([]gorm.ColumnType, error)

type ColumnType interface {
	Name() string
	DatabaseTypeName() string                 // varchar
	ColumnType() (columnType string, ok bool) // varchar(64)
	PrimaryKey() (isPrimaryKey bool, ok bool)
	AutoIncrement() (isAutoIncrement bool, ok bool)
	Length() (length int64, ok bool)
	DecimalSize() (precision int64, scale int64, ok bool)
	Nullable() (nullable bool, ok bool)
	Unique() (unique bool, ok bool)
	ScanType() reflect.Type
	Comment() (value string, ok bool)
	DefaultValue() (value string, ok bool)
}

Constraints

type UserIndex struct {
  Name  string `gorm:"check:name_checker,name <> 'jinzhu'"`
}

// Create constraint
db.Migrator().CreateConstraint(&User{}, "name_checker")

// Drop constraint
db.Migrator().DropConstraint(&User{}, "name_checker")

// Check constraint exists
db.Migrator().HasConstraint(&User{}, "name_checker")

Create foreign keys for relations

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCards []CreditCard
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  Number string
  UserID uint
}

// create database foreign key for user & credit_cards
db.Migrator().CreateConstraint(&User{}, "CreditCards")
db.Migrator().CreateConstraint(&User{}, "fk_users_credit_cards")
// ALTER TABLE `credit_cards` ADD CONSTRAINT `fk_users_credit_cards` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`) REFERENCES `users`(`id`)

// check database foreign key for user & credit_cards exists or not
db.Migrator().HasConstraint(&User{}, "CreditCards")
db.Migrator().HasConstraint(&User{}, "fk_users_credit_cards")

// drop database foreign key for user & credit_cards
db.Migrator().DropConstraint(&User{}, "CreditCards")
db.Migrator().DropConstraint(&User{}, "fk_users_credit_cards")

Indexes

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name string `gorm:"size:255;index:idx_name,unique"`
}

// Create index for Name field
db.Migrator().CreateIndex(&User{}, "Name")
db.Migrator().CreateIndex(&User{}, "idx_name")

// Drop index for Name field
db.Migrator().DropIndex(&User{}, "Name")
db.Migrator().DropIndex(&User{}, "idx_name")

// Check Index exists
db.Migrator().HasIndex(&User{}, "Name")
db.Migrator().HasIndex(&User{}, "idx_name")

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name  string `gorm:"size:255;index:idx_name,unique"`
  Name2 string `gorm:"size:255;index:idx_name_2,unique"`
}
// Rename index name
db.Migrator().RenameIndex(&User{}, "Name", "Name2")
db.Migrator().RenameIndex(&User{}, "idx_name", "idx_name_2")

Constraints

GORM creates constraints when auto migrating or creating table, see Constraints or Database Indexes for details

Other Migration Tools

GORM's AutoMigrate works well for most cases, but if you are looking for more serious migration tools, GORM provides a generic DB interface that might be helpful for you.

// returns `*sql.DB`
db.DB()

Refer to Generic Interface for more details.

models


title: Declaring Models layout: page

Declaring Models

Models are normal structs with basic Go types, pointers/alias of them or custom types implementing Scanner and Valuer interfaces

For Example:

type User struct {
  ID           uint
  Name         string
  Email        *string
  Age          uint8
  Birthday     *time.Time
  MemberNumber sql.NullString
  ActivatedAt  sql.NullTime
  CreatedAt    time.Time
  UpdatedAt    time.Time
}

Conventions

GORM prefer convention over configuration, by default, GORM uses ID as primary key, pluralize struct name to snake_cases as table name, snake_case as column name, and uses CreatedAt, UpdatedAt to track creating/updating time

If you follow the conventions adopted by GORM, you'll need to write very little configuration/code, If convention doesn't match your requirements, GORM allows you to configure them

gorm.Model

GORM defined a gorm.Model struct, which includes fields ID, CreatedAt, UpdatedAt, DeletedAt

// gorm.Model definition
type Model struct {
  ID        uint           `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  CreatedAt time.Time
  UpdatedAt time.Time
  DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt `gorm:"index"`
}

You can embed it into your struct to include those fields, refer Embedded Struct

Advanced

Field-Level Permission

Exported fields have all permission when doing CRUD with GORM, and GORM allows you to change the field-level permission with tag, so you can make a field to be read-only, write-only, create-only, update-only or ignored

{% note warn %} NOTE ignored fields won't be created when using GORM Migrator to create table {% endnote %}

type User struct {
  Name string `gorm:"<-:create"` // allow read and create
  Name string `gorm:"<-:update"` // allow read and update
  Name string `gorm:"<-"`        // allow read and write (create and update)
  Name string `gorm:"<-:false"`  // allow read, disable write permission
  Name string `gorm:"->"`        // readonly (disable write permission unless it configured)
  Name string `gorm:"->;<-:create"` // allow read and create
  Name string `gorm:"->:false;<-:create"` // createonly (disabled read from db)
  Name string `gorm:"-"`            // ignore this field when write and read with struct
  Name string `gorm:"-:all"`        // ignore this field when write, read and migrate with struct
  Name string `gorm:"-:migration"`  // ignore this field when migrate with struct
}

Creating/Updating Time/Unix (Milli/Nano) Seconds Tracking

GORM use CreatedAt, UpdatedAt to track creating/updating time by convention, and GORM will set the current time when creating/updating if the fields are defined

To use fields with a different name, you can configure those fields with tag autoCreateTime, autoUpdateTime

If you prefer to save UNIX (milli/nano) seconds instead of time, you can simply change the field's data type from time.Time to int

type User struct {
  CreatedAt time.Time // Set to current time if it is zero on creating
  UpdatedAt int       // Set to current unix seconds on updating or if it is zero on creating
  Updated   int64 `gorm:"autoUpdateTime:nano"` // Use unix nano seconds as updating time
  Updated   int64 `gorm:"autoUpdateTime:milli"`// Use unix milli seconds as updating time
  Created   int64 `gorm:"autoCreateTime"`      // Use unix seconds as creating time
}

Embedded Struct

For anonymous fields, GORM will include its fields into its parent struct, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name string
}
// equals
type User struct {
  ID        uint           `gorm:"primaryKey"`
  CreatedAt time.Time
  UpdatedAt time.Time
  DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt `gorm:"index"`
  Name string
}

For a normal struct field, you can embed it with the tag embedded, for example:

type Author struct {
	Name  string
	Email string
}

type Blog struct {
  ID      int
  Author  Author `gorm:"embedded"`
  Upvotes int32
}
// equals
type Blog struct {
  ID    int64
	Name  string
	Email string
  Upvotes  int32
}

And you can use tag embeddedPrefix to add prefix to embedded fields' db name, for example:

type Blog struct {
  ID      int
  Author  Author `gorm:"embedded;embeddedPrefix:author_"`
  Upvotes int32
}
// equals
type Blog struct {
  ID          int64
	AuthorName  string
	AuthorEmail string
  Upvotes     int32
}

Fields Tags

Tags are optional to use when declaring models, GORM supports the following tags: Tags are case insensitive, however camelCase is preferred.

Tag Name Description
column column db name
type column data type, prefer to use compatible general type, e.g: bool, int, uint, float, string, time, bytes, which works for all databases, and can be used with other tags together, like not null, size, autoIncrement... specified database data type like varbinary(8) also supported, when using specified database data type, it needs to be a full database data type, for example: MEDIUMINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT
serializer specifies serializer for how to serialize and deserialize data into db, e.g: serializer:json/gob/unixtime
size specifies column data size/length, e.g: size:256
primaryKey specifies column as primary key
unique specifies column as unique
default specifies column default value
precision specifies column precision
scale specifies column scale
not null specifies column as NOT NULL
autoIncrement specifies column auto incrementable
autoIncrementIncrement auto increment step, controls the interval between successive column values
embedded embed the field
embeddedPrefix column name prefix for embedded fields
autoCreateTime track current time when creating, for int fields, it will track unix seconds, use value nano/milli to track unix nano/milli seconds, e.g: autoCreateTime:nano
autoUpdateTime track current time when creating/updating, for int fields, it will track unix seconds, use value nano/milli to track unix nano/milli seconds, e.g: autoUpdateTime:milli
index create index with options, use same name for multiple fields creates composite indexes, refer Indexes for details
uniqueIndex same as index, but create uniqued index
check creates check constraint, eg: check:age > 13, refer Constraints
<- set field's write permission, <-:create create-only field, <-:update update-only field, <-:false no write permission, <- create and update permission
-> set field's read permission, ->:false no read permission
- ignore this field, - no read/write permission, -:migration no migrate permission, -:all no read/write/migrate permission
comment add comment for field when migration

Associations Tags

GORM allows configure foreign keys, constraints, many2many table through tags for Associations, check out the Associations section for details

performance


title: Performance layout: page

GORM optimizes many things to improve the performance, the default performance should good for most applications, but there are still some tips for how to improve it for your application.

GORM perform write (create/update/delete) operations run inside a transaction to ensure data consistency, which is bad for performance, you can disable it during initialization

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  SkipDefaultTransaction: true,
})

Creates a prepared statement when executing any SQL and caches them to speed up future calls

// Globally mode
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  PrepareStmt: true,
})

// Session mode
tx := db.Session(&Session{PrepareStmt: true})
tx.First(&user, 1)
tx.Find(&users)
tx.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)

{% note warn %} NOTE Also refer how to enable interpolateparams for MySQL to reduce roundtrip https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql#interpolateparams {% endnote %}

Prepared Statement works with RAW SQL also, for example:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  PrepareStmt: true,
})

db.Raw("select sum(age) from users where role = ?", "admin").Scan(&age)

You can also use GORM API to prepare SQL with DryRun Mode, and execute it with prepared statement later, checkout Session Mode for details

Select Fields

By default GORM select all fields when querying, you can use Select to specify fields you want

db.Select("Name", "Age").Find(&Users{})

Or define a smaller API struct to use the smart select fields feature

type User struct {
  ID     uint
  Name   string
  Age    int
  Gender string
  // hundreds of fields
}

type APIUser struct {
  ID   uint
  Name string
}

// Select `id`, `name` automatically when query
db.Model(&User{}).Limit(10).Find(&APIUser{})
// SELECT `id`, `name` FROM `users` LIMIT 10

Query and process records with iteration or in batches

Index is used to speed up data search and SQL query performance. Index Hints gives the optimizer information about how to choose indexes during query processing, which gives the flexibility to choose a more efficient execution plan than the optimizer

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.UseIndex("idx_user_name")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` USE INDEX (`idx_user_name`)

db.Clauses(hints.ForceIndex("idx_user_name", "idx_user_id").ForJoin()).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` FORCE INDEX FOR JOIN (`idx_user_name`,`idx_user_id`)"

db.Clauses(
	hints.ForceIndex("idx_user_name", "idx_user_id").ForOrderBy(),
	hints.IgnoreIndex("idx_user_name").ForGroupBy(),
).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` FORCE INDEX FOR ORDER BY (`idx_user_name`,`idx_user_id`) IGNORE INDEX FOR GROUP BY (`idx_user_name`)"

Read/Write Splitting

Increase data throughput through read/write splitting, check out Database Resolver

preload


title: Preloading (Eager Loading) layout: page

Preload

GORM allows eager loading relations in other SQL with Preload, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Username string
  Orders   []Order
}

type Order struct {
  gorm.Model
  UserID uint
  Price  float64
}

// Preload Orders when find users
db.Preload("Orders").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users;
// SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id IN (1,2,3,4);

db.Preload("Orders").Preload("Profile").Preload("Role").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users;
// SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id IN (1,2,3,4); // has many
// SELECT * FROM profiles WHERE user_id IN (1,2,3,4); // has one
// SELECT * FROM roles WHERE id IN (4,5,6); // belongs to

Joins Preloading

Preload loads the association data in a separate query, Join Preload will loads association data using inner join, for example:

db.Joins("Company").Joins("Manager").Joins("Account").First(&user, 1)
db.Joins("Company").Joins("Manager").Joins("Account").First(&user, "users.name = ?", "jinzhu")
db.Joins("Company").Joins("Manager").Joins("Account").Find(&users, "users.id IN ?", []int{1,2,3,4,5})

Join with conditions

db.Joins("Company", DB.Where(&Company{Alive: true})).Find(&users)
// SELECT `users`.`id`,`users`.`name`,`users`.`age`,`Company`.`id` AS `Company__id`,`Company`.`name` AS `Company__name` FROM `users` LEFT JOIN `companies` AS `Company` ON `users`.`company_id` = `Company`.`id` AND `Company`.`alive` = true;

{% note warn %} NOTE Join Preload works with one-to-one relation, e.g: has one, belongs to {% endnote %}

Preload All

clause.Associations can work with Preload similar like Select when creating/updating, you can use it to Preload all associations, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name       string
  CompanyID  uint
  Company    Company
  Role       Role
  Orders     []Order
}

db.Preload(clause.Associations).Find(&users)

clause.Associations won't preload nested associations, but you can use it with Nested Preloading together, e.g:

db.Preload("Orders.OrderItems.Product").Preload(clause.Associations).Find(&users)

Preload with conditions

GORM allows Preload associations with conditions, it works similar to Inline Conditions

// Preload Orders with conditions
db.Preload("Orders", "state NOT IN (?)", "cancelled").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users;
// SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id IN (1,2,3,4) AND state NOT IN ('cancelled');

db.Where("state = ?", "active").Preload("Orders", "state NOT IN (?)", "cancelled").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE state = 'active';
// SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id IN (1,2) AND state NOT IN ('cancelled');

Custom Preloading SQL

You are able to custom preloading SQL by passing in func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB, for example:

db.Preload("Orders", func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Order("orders.amount DESC")
}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users;
// SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id IN (1,2,3,4) order by orders.amount DESC;

Nested Preloading

GORM supports nested preloading, for example:

db.Preload("Orders.OrderItems.Product").Preload("CreditCard").Find(&users)

// Customize Preload conditions for `Orders`
// And GORM won't preload unmatched order's OrderItems then
db.Preload("Orders", "state = ?", "paid").Preload("Orders.OrderItems").Find(&users)

prometheus


title: Prometheus layout: page

GORM provides Prometheus plugin to collect DBStats or user-defined metrics

https://github.com/go-gorm/prometheus

Usage

import (
  "gorm.io/gorm"
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlite"
  "gorm.io/plugin/prometheus"
)

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{})

db.Use(prometheus.New(prometheus.Config{
  DBName:          "db1", // use `DBName` as metrics label
  RefreshInterval: 15,    // Refresh metrics interval (default 15 seconds)
  PushAddr:        "prometheus pusher address", // push metrics if `PushAddr` configured
  StartServer:     true,  // start http server to expose metrics
  HTTPServerPort:  8080,  // configure http server port, default port 8080 (if you have configured multiple instances, only the first `HTTPServerPort` will be used to start server)
  MetricsCollector: []prometheus.MetricsCollector {
    &prometheus.MySQL{
      VariableNames: []string{"Threads_running"},
    },
  },  // user defined metrics
}))

User-Defined Metrics

You can define your metrics and collect them with GORM Prometheus plugin, which needs to implements MetricsCollector interface

type MetricsCollector interface {
  Metrics(*Prometheus) []prometheus.Collector
}

MySQL

GORM provides an example for how to collect MySQL Status as metrics, check it out prometheus.MySQL

&prometheus.MySQL{
  Prefix: "gorm_status_",
  // Metrics name prefix, default is `gorm_status_`
  // For example, Threads_running's metric name is `gorm_status_Threads_running`
  Interval: 100,
  // Fetch interval, default use Prometheus's RefreshInterval
  VariableNames: []string{"Threads_running"},
  // Select variables from SHOW STATUS, if not set, uses all status variables
}

query


title: Query layout: page

Retrieving a single object

GORM provides First, Take, Last methods to retrieve a single object from the database, it adds LIMIT 1 condition when querying the database, and it will return the error ErrRecordNotFound if no record is found.

// Get the first record ordered by primary key
db.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Get one record, no specified order
db.Take(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 1;

// Get last record, ordered by primary key desc
db.Last(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1;

result := db.First(&user)
result.RowsAffected // returns count of records found
result.Error        // returns error or nil

// check error ErrRecordNotFound
errors.Is(result.Error, gorm.ErrRecordNotFound)

{% note warn %} If you want to avoid the ErrRecordNotFound error, you could use Find like db.Limit(1).Find(&user), the Find method accepts both struct and slice data {% endnote %}

The First and Last methods will find the first and last record (respectively) as ordered by primary key. They only work when a pointer to the destination struct is passed to the methods as argument or when the model is specified using db.Model(). Additionally, if no primary key is defined for relevant model, then the model will be ordered by the first field. For example:

var user User
var users []User

// works because destination struct is passed in
db.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

// works because model is specified using `db.Model()`
result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Model(&User{}).First(&result)
// SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

// doesn't work
result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Table("users").First(&result)

// works with Take
result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Table("users").Take(&result)

// no primary key defined, results will be ordered by first field (i.e., `Code`)
type Language struct {
  Code string
  Name string
}
db.First(&Language{})
// SELECT * FROM `languages` ORDER BY `languages`.`code` LIMIT 1

Retrieving objects with primary key

Objects can be retrieved using primary key by using Inline Conditions if the primary key is a number. When working with strings, extra care needs to be taken to avoid SQL Injection; check out Security section for details.

db.First(&user, 10)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

db.First(&user, "10")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

db.Find(&users, []int{1,2,3})
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (1,2,3);

If the primary key is a string (for example, like a uuid), the query will be written as follows:

db.First(&user, "id = ?", "1b74413f-f3b8-409f-ac47-e8c062e3472a")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = "1b74413f-f3b8-409f-ac47-e8c062e3472a";

When the destination object has a primary value, the primary key will be used to build the condition, for example:

var user = User{ID: 10}
db.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

var result User
db.Model(User{ID: 10}).First(&result)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

Retrieving all objects

// Get all records
result := db.Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users;

result.RowsAffected // returns found records count, equals `len(users)`
result.Error        // returns error

Conditions

String Conditions

// Get first matched record
db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Get all matched records
db.Where("name <> ?", "jinzhu").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name <> 'jinzhu';

// IN
db.Where("name IN ?", []string{"jinzhu", "jinzhu 2"}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name IN ('jinzhu','jinzhu 2');

// LIKE
db.Where("name LIKE ?", "%jin%").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE '%jin%';

// AND
db.Where("name = ? AND age >= ?", "jinzhu", "22").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age >= 22;

// Time
db.Where("updated_at > ?", lastWeek).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE updated_at > '2000-01-01 00:00:00';

// BETWEEN
db.Where("created_at BETWEEN ? AND ?", lastWeek, today).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE created_at BETWEEN '2000-01-01 00:00:00' AND '2000-01-08 00:00:00';

Struct & Map Conditions

// Struct
db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu", Age: 20}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 20 ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Map
db.Where(map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "age": 20}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 20;

// Slice of primary keys
db.Where([]int64{20, 21, 22}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (20, 21, 22);

{% note warn %} NOTE When querying with struct, GORM will only query with non-zero fields, that means if your field's value is 0, '', false or other zero values, it won't be used to build query conditions, for example: {% endnote %}

db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu", Age: 0}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu";

To include zero values in the query conditions, you can use a map, which will include all key-values as query conditions, for example:

db.Where(map[string]interface{}{"Name": "jinzhu", "Age": 0}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 0;

For more details, see Specify Struct search fields.

Specify Struct search fields

When searching with struct, you can specify which particular values from the struct to use in the query conditions by passing in the relevant field name or the dbname to Where(), for example:

db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu"}, "name", "Age").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 0;

db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu"}, "Age").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 0;

Inline Condition

Query conditions can be inlined into methods like First and Find in a similar way to Where.

// Get by primary key if it were a non-integer type
db.First(&user, "id = ?", "string_primary_key")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 'string_primary_key';

// Plain SQL
db.Find(&user, "name = ?", "jinzhu")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu";

db.Find(&users, "name <> ? AND age > ?", "jinzhu", 20)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name <> "jinzhu" AND age > 20;

// Struct
db.Find(&users, User{Age: 20})
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 20;

// Map
db.Find(&users, map[string]interface{}{"age": 20})
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 20;

Not Conditions

Build NOT conditions, works similar to Where

db.Not("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE NOT name = "jinzhu" ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Not In
db.Not(map[string]interface{}{"name": []string{"jinzhu", "jinzhu 2"}}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name NOT IN ("jinzhu", "jinzhu 2");

// Struct
db.Not(User{Name: "jinzhu", Age: 18}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name <> "jinzhu" AND age <> 18 ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Not In slice of primary keys
db.Not([]int64{1,2,3}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id NOT IN (1,2,3) ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

Or Conditions

db.Where("role = ?", "admin").Or("role = ?", "super_admin").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE role = 'admin' OR role = 'super_admin';

// Struct
db.Where("name = 'jinzhu'").Or(User{Name: "jinzhu 2", Age: 18}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' OR (name = 'jinzhu 2' AND age = 18);

// Map
db.Where("name = 'jinzhu'").Or(map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu 2", "age": 18}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' OR (name = 'jinzhu 2' AND age = 18);

For more complicated SQL queries. please also refer to Group Conditions in Advanced Query.

Selecting Specific Fields

Select allows you to specify the fields that you want to retrieve from database. Otherwise, GORM will select all fields by default.

db.Select("name", "age").Find(&users)
// SELECT name, age FROM users;

db.Select([]string{"name", "age"}).Find(&users)
// SELECT name, age FROM users;

db.Table("users").Select("COALESCE(age,?)", 42).Rows()
// SELECT COALESCE(age,'42') FROM users;

Also check out Smart Select Fields

Order

Specify order when retrieving records from the database

db.Order("age desc, name").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY age desc, name;

// Multiple orders
db.Order("age desc").Order("name").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY age desc, name;

db.Clauses(clause.OrderBy{
  Expression: clause.Expr{SQL: "FIELD(id,?)", Vars: []interface{}{[]int{1, 2, 3}}, WithoutParentheses: true},
}).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY FIELD(id,1,2,3)

Limit & Offset

Limit specify the max number of records to retrieve Offset specify the number of records to skip before starting to return the records

db.Limit(3).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 3;

// Cancel limit condition with -1
db.Limit(10).Find(&users1).Limit(-1).Find(&users2)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10; (users1)
// SELECT * FROM users; (users2)

db.Offset(3).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users OFFSET 3;

db.Limit(10).Offset(5).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users OFFSET 5 LIMIT 10;

// Cancel offset condition with -1
db.Offset(10).Find(&users1).Offset(-1).Find(&users2)
// SELECT * FROM users OFFSET 10; (users1)
// SELECT * FROM users; (users2)

Refer to Pagination for details on how to make a paginator

Group By & Having

type result struct {
  Date  time.Time
  Total int
}

db.Model(&User{}).Select("name, sum(age) as total").Where("name LIKE ?", "group%").Group("name").First(&result)
// SELECT name, sum(age) as total FROM `users` WHERE name LIKE "group%" GROUP BY `name` LIMIT 1


db.Model(&User{}).Select("name, sum(age) as total").Group("name").Having("name = ?", "group").Find(&result)
// SELECT name, sum(age) as total FROM `users` GROUP BY `name` HAVING name = "group"

rows, err := db.Table("orders").Select("date(created_at) as date, sum(amount) as total").Group("date(created_at)").Rows()
defer rows.Close()
for rows.Next() {
  ...
}

rows, err := db.Table("orders").Select("date(created_at) as date, sum(amount) as total").Group("date(created_at)").Having("sum(amount) > ?", 100).Rows()
defer rows.Close()
for rows.Next() {
  ...
}

type Result struct {
  Date  time.Time
  Total int64
}
db.Table("orders").Select("date(created_at) as date, sum(amount) as total").Group("date(created_at)").Having("sum(amount) > ?", 100).Scan(&results)

Distinct

Selecting distinct values from the model

db.Distinct("name", "age").Order("name, age desc").Find(&results)

Distinct works with Pluck and Count too

Joins

Specify Joins conditions

type result struct {
  Name  string
  Email string
}

db.Model(&User{}).Select("users.name, emails.email").Joins("left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id").Scan(&result{})
// SELECT users.name, emails.email FROM `users` left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id

rows, err := db.Table("users").Select("users.name, emails.email").Joins("left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id").Rows()
for rows.Next() {
  ...
}

db.Table("users").Select("users.name, emails.email").Joins("left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id").Scan(&results)

// multiple joins with parameter
db.Joins("JOIN emails ON emails.user_id = users.id AND emails.email = ?", "jinzhu@example.org").Joins("JOIN credit_cards ON credit_cards.user_id = users.id").Where("credit_cards.number = ?", "411111111111").Find(&user)

Joins Preloading

You can use Joins eager loading associations with a single SQL, for example:

db.Joins("Company").Find(&users)
// SELECT `users`.`id`,`users`.`name`,`users`.`age`,`Company`.`id` AS `Company__id`,`Company`.`name` AS `Company__name` FROM `users` LEFT JOIN `companies` AS `Company` ON `users`.`company_id` = `Company`.`id`;

Join with conditions

db.Joins("Company", DB.Where(&Company{Alive: true})).Find(&users)
// SELECT `users`.`id`,`users`.`name`,`users`.`age`,`Company`.`id` AS `Company__id`,`Company`.`name` AS `Company__name` FROM `users` LEFT JOIN `companies` AS `Company` ON `users`.`company_id` = `Company`.`id` AND `Company`.`alive` = true;

For more details, please refer to Preloading (Eager Loading).

Joins a Derived Table

You can also use Joins to join a derived table.

type User struct {
	Id  int
	Age int
}

type Order struct {
	UserId     int
	FinishedAt *time.Time
}

query := db.Table("order").Select("MAX(order.finished_at) as latest").Joins("left join user user on order.user_id = user.id").Where("user.age > ?", 18).Group("order.user_id")
db.Model(&Order{}).Joins("join (?) q on order.finished_at = q.latest", query).Scan(&results)
// SELECT `order`.`user_id`,`order`.`finished_at` FROM `order` join (SELECT MAX(order.finished_at) as latest FROM `order` left join user user on order.user_id = user.id WHERE user.age > 18 GROUP BY `order`.`user_id`) q on order.finished_at = q.latest

Scan

Scanning results into a struct works similarly to the way we use Find

type Result struct {
  Name string
  Age  int
}

var result Result
db.Table("users").Select("name", "age").Where("name = ?", "Antonio").Scan(&result)

// Raw SQL
db.Raw("SELECT name, age FROM users WHERE name = ?", "Antonio").Scan(&result)

scopes


title: Scopes layout: page

Scopes allow you to re-use commonly used logic, the shared logic needs to be defined as type func(*gorm.DB) *gorm.DB

Query

Scope examples for querying

func AmountGreaterThan1000(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Where("amount > ?", 1000)
}

func PaidWithCreditCard(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Where("pay_mode = ?", "card")
}

func PaidWithCod(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return db.Where("pay_mode = ?", "cod")
}

func OrderStatus(status []string) func (db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func (db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
    return db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000).Where("status IN (?)", status)
  }
}

db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000, PaidWithCreditCard).Find(&orders)
// Find all credit card orders and amount greater than 1000

db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000, PaidWithCod).Find(&orders)
// Find all COD orders and amount greater than 1000

db.Scopes(AmountGreaterThan1000, OrderStatus([]string{"paid", "shipped"})).Find(&orders)
// Find all paid, shipped orders that amount greater than 1000

Pagination

func Paginate(r *http.Request) func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func (db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
    q := r.URL.Query()
    page, _ := strconv.Atoi(q.Get("page"))
    if page == 0 {
      page = 1
    }

    pageSize, _ := strconv.Atoi(q.Get("page_size"))
    switch {
    case pageSize > 100:
      pageSize = 100
    case pageSize <= 0:
      pageSize = 10
    }

    offset := (page - 1) * pageSize
    return db.Offset(offset).Limit(pageSize)
  }
}

db.Scopes(Paginate(r)).Find(&users)
db.Scopes(Paginate(r)).Find(&articles)

Dynamically Table

Use Scopes to dynamically set the query Table

func TableOfYear(user *User, year int) func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
		tableName := user.TableName() + strconv.Itoa(year)
		return db.Table(tableName)
  }
}

DB.Scopes(TableOfYear(user, 2019)).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users_2019;

DB.Scopes(TableOfYear(user, 2020)).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users_2020;

// Table form different database
func TableOfOrg(user *User, dbName string) func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
		tableName := dbName + "." + user.TableName()
		return db.Table(tableName)
  }
}

DB.Scopes(TableOfOrg(user, "org1")).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM org1.users;

DB.Scopes(TableOfOrg(user, "org2")).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM org2.users;

Updates

Scope examples for updating/deleting

func CurOrganization(r *http.Request) func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func (db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
    org := r.Query("org")

    if org != "" {
      var organization Organization
      if db.Session(&Session{}).First(&organization, "name = ?", org).Error == nil {
        return db.Where("org_id = ?", organization.ID)
      }
    }

    db.AddError("invalid organization")
    return db
  }
}

db.Model(&article).Scopes(CurOrganization(r)).Update("Name", "name 1")
// UPDATE articles SET name = "name 1" WHERE org_id = 111
db.Scopes(CurOrganization(r)).Delete(&Article{})
// DELETE FROM articles WHERE org_id = 111

security


title: Security layout: page

GORM uses the database/sql's argument placeholders to construct the SQL statement, which will automatically escape arguments to avoid SQL injection

{% note warn %} NOTE The SQL from Logger is not fully escaped like the one executed, be careful when copying and executing it in SQL console {% endnote %}

Query Condition

User's input should be only used as an argument, for example:

userInput := "jinzhu;drop table users;"

// safe, will be escaped
db.Where("name = ?", userInput).First(&user)

// SQL injection
db.Where(fmt.Sprintf("name = %v", userInput)).First(&user)

Inline Condition

// will be escaped
db.First(&user, "name = ?", userInput)

// SQL injection
db.First(&user, fmt.Sprintf("name = %v", userInput))

When retrieving objects with number primary key by user's input, you should check the type of variable.

userInputID := "1=1;drop table users;"
// safe, return error
id,err := strconv.Atoi(userInputID)
if err != nil {
    return error
}
db.First(&user, id)

// SQL injection
db.First(&user, userInputID)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE 1=1;drop table users;

SQL injection Methods

To support some features, some inputs are not escaped, be careful when using user's input with those methods

db.Select("name; drop table users;").First(&user)
db.Distinct("name; drop table users;").First(&user)

db.Model(&user).Pluck("name; drop table users;", &names)

db.Group("name; drop table users;").First(&user)

db.Group("name").Having("1 = 1;drop table users;").First(&user)

db.Raw("select name from users; drop table users;").First(&user)

db.Exec("select name from users; drop table users;")

db.Order("name; drop table users;").First(&user)

The general rule to avoid SQL injection is don't trust user-submitted data, you can perform whitelist validation to test user input against an existing set of known, approved, and defined input, and when using user's input, only use them as an argument.

serializer


title: Serializer layout: page

Serializer is an extensible interface that allows to customize how to serialize and deserialize data with databasae.

GORM provides some default serializers: json, gob, unixtime, here is a quick example of how to use it.

type User struct {
	Name        []byte                 `gorm:"serializer:json"`
	Roles       Roles                  `gorm:"serializer:json"`
	Contracts   map[string]interface{} `gorm:"serializer:json"`
	JobInfo     Job                    `gorm:"type:bytes;serializer:gob"`
	CreatedTime int64                  `gorm:"serializer:unixtime;type:time"` // store int as datetime into database
}

type Roles []string

type Job struct {
	Title    string
	Location string
	IsIntern bool
}

createdAt := time.Date(2020, 1, 1, 0, 8, 0, 0, time.UTC)
data := User{
  Name:        []byte("jinzhu"),
  Roles:       []string{"admin", "owner"},
  Contracts:   map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "age": 10},
  CreatedTime: createdAt.Unix(),
  JobInfo: Job{
    Title:    "Developer",
    Location: "NY",
    IsIntern: false,
  },
}

DB.Create(&data)
// INSERT INTO `users` (`name`,`roles`,`contracts`,`job_info`,`created_time`) VALUES
//   ("\"amluemh1\"","[\"admin\",\"owner\"]","{\"age\":10,\"name\":\"jinzhu\"}",<gob binary>,"2020-01-01 00:08:00")

var result User
DB.First(&result, "id = ?", data.ID)
// result => User{
//   Name:        []byte("jinzhu"),
//   Roles:       []string{"admin", "owner"},
//   Contracts:   map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "age": 10},
//   CreatedTime: createdAt.Unix(),
//   JobInfo: Job{
//     Title:    "Developer",
//     Location: "NY",
//     IsIntern: false,
//   },
// }

DB.Where(User{Name: []byte("jinzhu")}).Take(&result)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `users`.`name` = "\"amluemh1\"

Register Serializer

A Serializer needs to implement how to serialize and deserialize data, so it requires to implement the the following interface

import "gorm.io/gorm/schema"

type SerializerInterface interface {
	Scan(ctx context.Context, field *schema.Field, dst reflect.Value, dbValue interface{}) error
	SerializerValuerInterface
}

type SerializerValuerInterface interface {
	Value(ctx context.Context, field *schema.Field, dst reflect.Value, fieldValue interface{}) (interface{}, error)
}

For example, the default JSONSerializer is implemented like:

// JSONSerializer json serializer
type JSONSerializer struct {
}

// Scan implements serializer interface
func (JSONSerializer) Scan(ctx context.Context, field *Field, dst reflect.Value, dbValue interface{}) (err error) {
	fieldValue := reflect.New(field.FieldType)

	if dbValue != nil {
		var bytes []byte
		switch v := dbValue.(type) {
		case []byte:
			bytes = v
		case string:
			bytes = []byte(v)
		default:
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to unmarshal JSONB value: %#v", dbValue)
		}

		err = json.Unmarshal(bytes, fieldValue.Interface())
	}

	field.ReflectValueOf(ctx, dst).Set(fieldValue.Elem())
	return
}

// Value implements serializer interface
func (JSONSerializer) Value(ctx context.Context, field *Field, dst reflect.Value, fieldValue interface{}) (interface{}, error) {
	return json.Marshal(fieldValue)
}

And registered with the following code:

schema.RegisterSerializer("json", JSONSerializer{})

After registering a serializer, you can use it with the serializer tag, for example:

type User struct {
	Name []byte `gorm:"serializer:json"`
}

Customized Serializer Type

You can use a registered serializer with tags, you are also allowed to create a customized struct that implements the above SerializerInterface and use it as a field type directly, for example:

type EncryptedString string

// ctx: contains request-scoped values
// field: the field using the serializer, contains GORM settings, struct tags
// dst: current model value, `user` in the below example
// dbValue: current field's value in database
func (es *EncryptedString) Scan(ctx context.Context, field *schema.Field, dst reflect.Value, dbValue interface{}) (err error) {
	switch value := dbValue.(type) {
	case []byte:
		*es = EncryptedString(bytes.TrimPrefix(value, []byte("hello")))
	case string:
		*es = EncryptedString(strings.TrimPrefix(value, "hello"))
	default:
		return fmt.Errorf("unsupported data %#v", dbValue)
	}
	return nil
}

// ctx: contains request-scoped values
// field: the field using the serializer, contains GORM settings, struct tags
// dst: current model value, `user` in the below example
// fieldValue: current field's value of the dst
func (es EncryptedString) Value(ctx context.Context, field *schema.Field, dst reflect.Value, fieldValue interface{}) (interface{}, error) {
	return "hello" + string(es), nil
}

type User struct {
	gorm.Model
	Password EncryptedString
}

data := User{
	Password: EncryptedString("pass"),
}

DB.Create(&data)
// INSERT INTO `serializer_structs` (`password`) VALUES ("hellopass")

var result User
DB.First(&result, "id = ?", data.ID)
// result => User{
//   Password: EncryptedString("pass"),
// }

DB.Where(User{Password: EncryptedString("pass")}).Take(&result)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `users`.`password` = "hellopass"

session


title: Session layout: page

GORM provides Session method, which is a New Session Method, it allows to create a new session mode with configuration:

// Session Configuration
type Session struct {
  DryRun                   bool
  PrepareStmt              bool
  NewDB                    bool
  Initialized              bool
  SkipHooks                bool
  SkipDefaultTransaction   bool
  DisableNestedTransaction bool
  AllowGlobalUpdate        bool
  FullSaveAssociations     bool
  QueryFields              bool
  Context                  context.Context
  Logger                   logger.Interface
  NowFunc                  func() time.Time
  CreateBatchSize          int
}

DryRun

Generates SQL without executing. It can be used to prepare or test generated SQL, for example:

// session mode
stmt := db.Session(&Session{DryRun: true}).First(&user, 1).Statement
stmt.SQL.String() //=> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = $1 ORDER BY `id`
stmt.Vars         //=> []interface{}{1}

// globally mode with DryRun
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{DryRun: true})

// different databases generate different SQL
stmt := db.Find(&user, 1).Statement
stmt.SQL.String() //=> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = $1 // PostgreSQL
stmt.SQL.String() //=> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = ?  // MySQL
stmt.Vars         //=> []interface{}{1}

To generate the final SQL, you could use following code:

// NOTE: the SQL is not always safe to execute, GORM only uses it for logs, it might cause SQL injection
db.Dialector.Explain(stmt.SQL.String(), stmt.Vars...)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = 1

PrepareStmt

PreparedStmt creates prepared statements when executing any SQL and caches them to speed up future calls, for example:

// globally mode, all DB operations will create prepared statements and cache them
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  PrepareStmt: true,
})

// session mode
tx := db.Session(&Session{PrepareStmt: true})
tx.First(&user, 1)
tx.Find(&users)
tx.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)

// returns prepared statements manager
stmtManger, ok := tx.ConnPool.(*PreparedStmtDB)

// close prepared statements for *current session*
stmtManger.Close()

// prepared SQL for *current session*
stmtManger.PreparedSQL // => []string{}

// prepared statements for current database connection pool (all sessions)
stmtManger.Stmts // map[string]*sql.Stmt

for sql, stmt := range stmtManger.Stmts {
  sql  // prepared SQL
  stmt // prepared statement
  stmt.Close() // close the prepared statement
}

NewDB

Create a new DB without conditions with option NewDB, for example:

tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Session(&gorm.Session{NewDB: true})

tx.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id LIMIT 1

tx.First(&user, "id = ?", 10)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10 ORDER BY id

// Without option `NewDB`
tx2 := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Session(&gorm.Session{})
tx2.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" ORDER BY id

Initialized

Create a new initialized DB, which is not Method Chain/Gortoutine Safe anymore, refer Method Chaining

tx := db.Session(&gorm.Session{Initialized: true})

Skip Hooks

If you want to skip Hooks methods, you can use the SkipHooks session mode, for example:

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Create(&user)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Create(&users)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).CreateInBatches(users, 100)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Find(&user)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Delete(&user)

DB.Session(&gorm.Session{SkipHooks: true}).Model(User{}).Where("age > ?", 18).Updates(&user)

DisableNestedTransaction

When using Transaction method inside a DB transaction, GORM will use SavePoint(savedPointName), RollbackTo(savedPointName) to give you the nested transaction support. You can disable it by using the DisableNestedTransaction option, for example:

db.Session(&gorm.Session{
  DisableNestedTransaction: true,
}).CreateInBatches(&users, 100)

AllowGlobalUpdate

GORM doesn't allow global update/delete by default, will return ErrMissingWhereClause error. You can set this option to true to enable it, for example:

db.Session(&gorm.Session{
  AllowGlobalUpdate: true,
}).Model(&User{}).Update("name", "jinzhu")
// UPDATE users SET `name` = "jinzhu"

FullSaveAssociations

GORM will auto-save associations and its reference using Upsert when creating/updating a record. If you want to update associations' data, you should use the FullSaveAssociations mode, for example:

db.Session(&gorm.Session{FullSaveAssociations: true}).Updates(&user)
// ...
// INSERT INTO "addresses" (address1) VALUES ("Billing Address - Address 1"), ("Shipping Address - Address 1") ON DUPLICATE KEY SET address1=VALUES(address1);
// INSERT INTO "users" (name,billing_address_id,shipping_address_id) VALUES ("jinzhu", 1, 2);
// INSERT INTO "emails" (user_id,email) VALUES (111, "jinzhu@example.com"), (111, "jinzhu-2@example.com") ON DUPLICATE KEY SET email=VALUES(email);
// ...

Context

With the Context option, you can set the Context for following SQL operations, for example:

timeoutCtx, _ := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), time.Second)
tx := db.Session(&Session{Context: timeoutCtx})

tx.First(&user) // query with context timeoutCtx
tx.Model(&user).Update("role", "admin") // update with context timeoutCtx

GORM also provides shortcut method WithContext, here is the definition:

func (db *DB) WithContext(ctx context.Context) *DB {
  return db.Session(&Session{Context: ctx})
}

Logger

Gorm allows customizing built-in logger with the Logger option, for example:

newLogger := logger.New(log.New(os.Stdout, "\r\n", log.LstdFlags),
              logger.Config{
                SlowThreshold: time.Second,
                LogLevel:      logger.Silent,
                Colorful:      false,
              })
db.Session(&Session{Logger: newLogger})

db.Session(&Session{Logger: logger.Default.LogMode(logger.Silent)})

Checkout Logger for more details.

NowFunc

NowFunc allows changing the function to get current time of GORM, for example:

db.Session(&Session{
  NowFunc: func() time.Time {
    return time.Now().Local()
  },
})

Debug

Debug is a shortcut method to change session's Logger to debug mode, here is the definition:

func (db *DB) Debug() (tx *DB) {
  return db.Session(&Session{
    Logger:         db.Logger.LogMode(logger.Info),
  })
}

QueryFields

Select by fields

db.Session(&gorm.Session{QueryFields: true}).Find(&user)
// SELECT `users`.`name`, `users`.`age`, ... FROM `users` // with this option
// SELECT * FROM `users` // without this option

CreateBatchSize

Default batch size

users = [5000]User{{Name: "jinzhu", Pets: []Pet{pet1, pet2, pet3}}...}

db.Session(&gorm.Session{CreateBatchSize: 1000}).Create(&users)
// INSERT INTO users xxx (5 batches)
// INSERT INTO pets xxx (15 batches)

settings


title: Settings layout: page

GORM provides Set, Get, InstanceSet, InstanceGet methods allow users pass values to hooks or other methods

GORM uses this for some features, like pass creating table options when migrating table.

// Add table suffix when creating tables
db.Set("gorm:table_options", "ENGINE=InnoDB").AutoMigrate(&User{})

Set / Get

Use Set / Get pass settings to hooks methods, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCard CreditCard
  // ...
}

func (u *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  myValue, ok := tx.Get("my_value")
  // ok => true
  // myValue => 123
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  // ...
}

func (card *CreditCard) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  myValue, ok := tx.Get("my_value")
  // ok => true
  // myValue => 123
}

myValue := 123
db.Set("my_value", myValue).Create(&User{})

InstanceSet / InstanceGet

Use InstanceSet / InstanceGet pass settings to current *Statement's hooks methods, for example:

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  CreditCard CreditCard
  // ...
}

func (u *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  myValue, ok := tx.InstanceGet("my_value")
  // ok => true
  // myValue => 123
}

type CreditCard struct {
  gorm.Model
  // ...
}

// When creating associations, GORM creates a new `*Statement`, so can't read other instance's settings
func (card *CreditCard) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  myValue, ok := tx.InstanceGet("my_value")
  // ok => false
  // myValue => nil
}

myValue := 123
db.InstanceSet("my_value", myValue).Create(&User{})

sharding


title: Sharding layout: page

Sharding plugin using SQL parser and replace for splits large tables into smaller ones, redirects Query into sharding tables. Give you a high performance database access.

https://github.com/go-gorm/sharding

Features

  • Non-intrusive design. Load the plugin, specify the config, and all done.
  • Lighting-fast. No network based middlewares, as fast as Go.
  • Multiple database support. PostgreSQL tested, MySQL and SQLite is coming.
  • Allows you custom the Primary Key generator (Built in keygen, Sequence, Snowflake ...).

Usage

Config the sharding middleware, register the tables which you want to shard. See Godoc for config details.

import (
	"fmt"

	"gorm.io/driver/postgres"
	"gorm.io/gorm"
	"gorm.io/sharding"
)

dsn := "postgres://localhost:5432/sharding-db?sslmode=disable"
db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{DSN: dsn}))

db.Use(sharding.Register(sharding.Config{
    ShardingKey:         "user_id",
    NumberOfShards:      64,
    PrimaryKeyGenerator: sharding.PKSnowflake,
}, "orders").Register(sharding.Config{
    ShardingKey:         "user_id",
    NumberOfShards:      256,
    PrimaryKeyGenerator: sharding.PKSnowflake,
    // This case for show up give notifications, audit_logs table use same sharding rule.
}, Notification{}, AuditLog{}))

Use the db session as usual. Just note that the query should have the Sharding Key when operate sharding tables.

// Gorm create example, this will insert to orders_02
db.Create(&Order{UserID: 2})
// sql: INSERT INTO orders_2 ...

// Show have use Raw SQL to insert, this will insert into orders_03
db.Exec("INSERT INTO orders(user_id) VALUES(?)", int64(3))

// This will throw ErrMissingShardingKey error, because there not have sharding key presented.
db.Create(&Order{Amount: 10, ProductID: 100})
fmt.Println(err)

// Find, this will redirect query to orders_02
var orders []Order
db.Model(&Order{}).Where("user_id", int64(2)).Find(&orders)
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", orders)

// Raw SQL also supported
db.Raw("SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id = ?", int64(3)).Scan(&orders)
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", orders)

// This will throw ErrMissingShardingKey error, because WHERE conditions not included sharding key
err = db.Model(&Order{}).Where("product_id", "1").Find(&orders).Error
fmt.Println(err)

// Update and Delete are similar to create and query
db.Exec("UPDATE orders SET product_id = ? WHERE user_id = ?", 2, int64(3))
err = db.Exec("DELETE FROM orders WHERE product_id = 3").Error
fmt.Println(err) // ErrMissingShardingKey

The full example is here.

sql_builder


title: SQL Builder layout: page

Raw SQL

Query Raw SQL with Scan

type Result struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
  Age  int
}

var result Result
db.Raw("SELECT id, name, age FROM users WHERE name = ?", 3).Scan(&result)

db.Raw("SELECT id, name, age FROM users WHERE name = ?", 3).Scan(&result)

var age int
db.Raw("SELECT SUM(age) FROM users WHERE role = ?", "admin").Scan(&age)

var users []User
db.Raw("UPDATE users SET name = ? WHERE age = ? RETURNING id, name", "jinzhu", 20).Scan(&users)

Exec with Raw SQL

db.Exec("DROP TABLE users")
db.Exec("UPDATE orders SET shipped_at = ? WHERE id IN ?", time.Now(), []int64{1, 2, 3})

// Exec with SQL Expression
db.Exec("UPDATE users SET money = ? WHERE name = ?", gorm.Expr("money * ? + ?", 10000, 1), "jinzhu")

{% note warn %} NOTE GORM allows cache prepared statement to increase performance, checkout Performance for details {% endnote %}

Named Argument

GORM supports named arguments with sql.NamedArg, map[string]interface{}{} or struct, for example:

db.Where("name1 = @name OR name2 = @name", sql.Named("name", "jinzhu")).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE name1 = "jinzhu" OR name2 = "jinzhu"

db.Where("name1 = @name OR name2 = @name", map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu2"}).First(&result3)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE name1 = "jinzhu2" OR name2 = "jinzhu2" ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

// Named Argument with Raw SQL
db.Raw("SELECT * FROM users WHERE name1 = @name OR name2 = @name2 OR name3 = @name",
   sql.Named("name", "jinzhu1"), sql.Named("name2", "jinzhu2")).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name1 = "jinzhu1" OR name2 = "jinzhu2" OR name3 = "jinzhu1"

db.Exec("UPDATE users SET name1 = @name, name2 = @name2, name3 = @name",
   sql.Named("name", "jinzhunew"), sql.Named("name2", "jinzhunew2"))
// UPDATE users SET name1 = "jinzhunew", name2 = "jinzhunew2", name3 = "jinzhunew"

db.Raw("SELECT * FROM users WHERE (name1 = @name AND name3 = @name) AND name2 = @name2",
   map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "name2": "jinzhu2"}).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE (name1 = "jinzhu" AND name3 = "jinzhu") AND name2 = "jinzhu2"

type NamedArgument struct {
	Name string
	Name2 string
}

db.Raw("SELECT * FROM users WHERE (name1 = @Name AND name3 = @Name) AND name2 = @Name2",
	 NamedArgument{Name: "jinzhu", Name2: "jinzhu2"}).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE (name1 = "jinzhu" AND name3 = "jinzhu") AND name2 = "jinzhu2"

DryRun Mode

Generate SQL and its arguments without executing, can be used to prepare or test generated SQL, Checkout Session for details

stmt := db.Session(&Session{DryRun: true}).First(&user, 1).Statement
stmt.SQL.String() //=> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = $1 ORDER BY `id`
stmt.Vars         //=> []interface{}{1}

ToSQL

Returns generated SQL without executing.

GORM uses the database/sql's argument placeholders to construct the SQL statement, which will automatically escape arguments to avoid SQL injection, but the generated SQL don't provide the safety guarantees, please only use it for debugging.

sql := DB.ToSQL(func(tx *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return tx.Model(&User{}).Where("id = ?", 100).Limit(10).Order("age desc").Find(&[]User{})
})
sql //=> SELECT * FROM "users" WHERE id = 100 AND "users"."deleted_at" IS NULL ORDER BY age desc LIMIT 10

Row & Rows

Get result as *sql.Row

// Use GORM API build SQL
row := db.Table("users").Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Select("name", "age").Row()
row.Scan(&name, &age)

// Use Raw SQL
row := db.Raw("select name, age, email from users where name = ?", "jinzhu").Row()
row.Scan(&name, &age, &email)

Get result as *sql.Rows

// Use GORM API build SQL
rows, err := db.Model(&User{}).Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Select("name, age, email").Rows()
defer rows.Close()
for rows.Next() {
  rows.Scan(&name, &age, &email)

  // do something
}

// Raw SQL
rows, err := db.Raw("select name, age, email from users where name = ?", "jinzhu").Rows()
defer rows.Close()
for rows.Next() {
  rows.Scan(&name, &age, &email)

  // do something
}

Checkout FindInBatches for how to query and process records in batch Checkout Group Conditions for how to build complicated SQL Query

Scan *sql.Rows into struct

Use ScanRows to scan a row into a struct, for example:

rows, err := db.Model(&User{}).Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Select("name, age, email").Rows() // (*sql.Rows, error)
defer rows.Close()

var user User
for rows.Next() {
  // ScanRows scan a row into user
  db.ScanRows(rows, &user)

  // do something
}

Connection

Run mutliple SQL in same db tcp connection (not in a transaction)

db.Connection(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  tx.Exec("SET my.role = ?", "admin")

  tx.First(&User{})
})

Advanced

Clauses

GORM uses SQL builder generates SQL internally, for each operation, GORM creates a *gorm.Statement object, all GORM APIs add/change Clause for the Statement, at last, GORM generated SQL based on those clauses

For example, when querying with First, it adds the following clauses to the Statement

clause.Select{Columns: "*"}
clause.From{Tables: clause.CurrentTable}
clause.Limit{Limit: 1}
clause.OrderByColumn{
  Column: clause.Column{Table: clause.CurrentTable, Name: clause.PrimaryKey},
}

Then GORM build finally querying SQL in the Query callbacks like:

Statement.Build("SELECT", "FROM", "WHERE", "GROUP BY", "ORDER BY", "LIMIT", "FOR")

Which generate SQL:

SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

You can define your own Clause and use it with GORM, it needs to implements Interface

Check out examples for reference

Clause Builder

For different databases, Clauses may generate different SQL, for example:

db.Offset(10).Limit(5).Find(&users)
// Generated for SQL Server
// SELECT * FROM "users" OFFSET 10 ROW FETCH NEXT 5 ROWS ONLY
// Generated for MySQL
// SELECT * FROM `users` LIMIT 5 OFFSET 10

Which is supported because GORM allows database driver register Clause Builder to replace the default one, take the Limit as example

Clause Options

GORM defined Many Clauses, and some clauses provide advanced options can be used for your application

Although most of them are rarely used, if you find GORM public API can't match your requirements, may be good to check them out, for example:

db.Clauses(clause.Insert{Modifier: "IGNORE"}).Create(&user)
// INSERT IGNORE INTO users (name,age...) VALUES ("jinzhu",18...);

StatementModifier

GORM provides interface StatementModifier allows you modify statement to match your requirements, take Hints as example

import "gorm.io/hints"

db.Clauses(hints.New("hint")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * /*+ hint */ FROM `users`

transactions


title: Transactions layout: page

Disable Default Transaction

GORM perform write (create/update/delete) operations run inside a transaction to ensure data consistency, you can disable it during initialization if it is not required, you will gain about 30%+ performance improvement after that

// Globally disable
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  SkipDefaultTransaction: true,
})

// Continuous session mode
tx := db.Session(&Session{SkipDefaultTransaction: true})
tx.First(&user, 1)
tx.Find(&users)
tx.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)

Transaction

To perform a set of operations within a transaction, the general flow is as below.

db.Transaction(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  // do some database operations in the transaction (use 'tx' from this point, not 'db')
  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Giraffe"}).Error; err != nil {
    // return any error will rollback
    return err
  }

  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Lion"}).Error; err != nil {
    return err
  }

  // return nil will commit the whole transaction
  return nil
})

Nested Transactions

GORM supports nested transactions, you can rollback a subset of operations performed within the scope of a larger transaction, for example:

db.Transaction(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  tx.Create(&user1)

  tx.Transaction(func(tx2 *gorm.DB) error {
    tx2.Create(&user2)
    return errors.New("rollback user2") // Rollback user2
  })

  tx.Transaction(func(tx2 *gorm.DB) error {
    tx2.Create(&user3)
    return nil
  })

  return nil
})

// Commit user1, user3

Control the transaction manually

Gorm supports calling transaction control functions (commit / rollback) directly, for example:

// begin a transaction
tx := db.Begin()

// do some database operations in the transaction (use 'tx' from this point, not 'db')
tx.Create(...)

// ...

// rollback the transaction in case of error
tx.Rollback()

// Or commit the transaction
tx.Commit()

A Specific Example

func CreateAnimals(db *gorm.DB) error {
  // Note the use of tx as the database handle once you are within a transaction
  tx := db.Begin()
  defer func() {
    if r := recover(); r != nil {
      tx.Rollback()
    }
  }()

  if err := tx.Error; err != nil {
    return err
  }

  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Giraffe"}).Error; err != nil {
     tx.Rollback()
     return err
  }

  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Lion"}).Error; err != nil {
     tx.Rollback()
     return err
  }

  return tx.Commit().Error
}

SavePoint, RollbackTo

GORM provides SavePoint, RollbackTo to save points and roll back to a savepoint, for example:

tx := db.Begin()
tx.Create(&user1)

tx.SavePoint("sp1")
tx.Create(&user2)
tx.RollbackTo("sp1") // Rollback user2

tx.Commit() // Commit user1

update


title: Update layout: page

Save All Fields

Save will save all fields when performing the Updating SQL

db.First(&user)

user.Name = "jinzhu 2"
user.Age = 100
db.Save(&user)
// UPDATE users SET name='jinzhu 2', age=100, birthday='2016-01-01', updated_at = '2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE id=111;

Update single column

When updating a single column with Update, it needs to have any conditions or it will raise error ErrMissingWhereClause, checkout Block Global Updates for details When using the Model method and its value has a primary value, the primary key will be used to build the condition, for example:

// Update with conditions
db.Model(&User{}).Where("active = ?", true).Update("name", "hello")
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', updated_at='2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE active=true;

// User's ID is `111`:
db.Model(&user).Update("name", "hello")
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', updated_at='2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE id=111;

// Update with conditions and model value
db.Model(&user).Where("active = ?", true).Update("name", "hello")
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', updated_at='2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE id=111 AND active=true;

Updates multiple columns

Updates supports update with struct or map[string]interface{}, when updating with struct it will only update non-zero fields by default

// Update attributes with `struct`, will only update non-zero fields
db.Model(&user).Updates(User{Name: "hello", Age: 18, Active: false})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=18, updated_at = '2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE id = 111;

// Update attributes with `map`
db.Model(&user).Updates(map[string]interface{}{"name": "hello", "age": 18, "active": false})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=18, active=false, updated_at='2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE id=111;

{% note warn %} NOTE When update with struct, GORM will only update non-zero fields, you might want to use map to update attributes or use Select to specify fields to update {% endnote %}

Update Selected Fields

If you want to update selected fields or ignore some fields when updating, you can use Select, Omit

// Select with Map
// User's ID is `111`:
db.Model(&user).Select("name").Updates(map[string]interface{}{"name": "hello", "age": 18, "active": false})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello' WHERE id=111;

db.Model(&user).Omit("name").Updates(map[string]interface{}{"name": "hello", "age": 18, "active": false})
// UPDATE users SET age=18, active=false, updated_at='2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE id=111;

// Select with Struct (select zero value fields)
db.Model(&user).Select("Name", "Age").Updates(User{Name: "new_name", Age: 0})
// UPDATE users SET name='new_name', age=0 WHERE id=111;

// Select all fields (select all fields include zero value fields)
db.Model(&user).Select("*").Update(User{Name: "jinzhu", Role: "admin", Age: 0})

// Select all fields but omit Role (select all fields include zero value fields)
db.Model(&user).Select("*").Omit("Role").Update(User{Name: "jinzhu", Role: "admin", Age: 0})

Update Hooks

GORM allows hooks BeforeSave, BeforeUpdate, AfterSave, AfterUpdate, those methods will be called when updating a record, refer Hooks for details

func (u *User) BeforeUpdate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
	if u.Role == "admin" {
		return errors.New("admin user not allowed to update")
	}
	return
}

Batch Updates

If we haven't specified a record having primary key value with Model, GORM will perform a batch updates

// Update with struct
db.Model(User{}).Where("role = ?", "admin").Updates(User{Name: "hello", Age: 18})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=18 WHERE role = 'admin';

// Update with map
db.Table("users").Where("id IN ?", []int{10, 11}).Updates(map[string]interface{}{"name": "hello", "age": 18})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=18 WHERE id IN (10, 11);

Block Global Updates

If you perform a batch update without any conditions, GORM WON'T run it and will return ErrMissingWhereClause error by default

You have to use some conditions or use raw SQL or enable the AllowGlobalUpdate mode, for example:

db.Model(&User{}).Update("name", "jinzhu").Error // gorm.ErrMissingWhereClause

db.Model(&User{}).Where("1 = 1").Update("name", "jinzhu")
// UPDATE users SET `name` = "jinzhu" WHERE 1=1

db.Exec("UPDATE users SET name = ?", "jinzhu")
// UPDATE users SET name = "jinzhu"

db.Session(&gorm.Session{AllowGlobalUpdate: true}).Model(&User{}).Update("name", "jinzhu")
// UPDATE users SET `name` = "jinzhu"

Updated Records Count

Get the number of rows affected by a update

// Get updated records count with `RowsAffected`
result := db.Model(User{}).Where("role = ?", "admin").Updates(User{Name: "hello", Age: 18})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=18 WHERE role = 'admin';

result.RowsAffected // returns updated records count
result.Error        // returns updating error

Advanced

Update with SQL Expression

GORM allows updates column with SQL expression, e.g:

// product's ID is `3`
db.Model(&product).Update("price", gorm.Expr("price * ? + ?", 2, 100))
// UPDATE "products" SET "price" = price * 2 + 100, "updated_at" = '2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE "id" = 3;

db.Model(&product).Updates(map[string]interface{}{"price": gorm.Expr("price * ? + ?", 2, 100)})
// UPDATE "products" SET "price" = price * 2 + 100, "updated_at" = '2013-11-17 21:34:10' WHERE "id" = 3;

db.Model(&product).UpdateColumn("quantity", gorm.Expr("quantity - ?", 1))
// UPDATE "products" SET "quantity" = quantity - 1 WHERE "id" = 3;

db.Model(&product).Where("quantity > 1").UpdateColumn("quantity", gorm.Expr("quantity - ?", 1))
// UPDATE "products" SET "quantity" = quantity - 1 WHERE "id" = 3 AND quantity > 1;

And GORM also allows update with SQL Expression/Context Valuer with Customized Data Types, e.g:

// Create from customized data type
type Location struct {
	X, Y int
}

func (loc Location) GormValue(ctx context.Context, db *gorm.DB) clause.Expr {
  return clause.Expr{
    SQL:  "ST_PointFromText(?)",
    Vars: []interface{}{fmt.Sprintf("POINT(%d %d)", loc.X, loc.Y)},
  }
}

db.Model(&User{ID: 1}).Updates(User{
  Name:  "jinzhu",
  Location: Location{X: 100, Y: 100},
})
// UPDATE `user_with_points` SET `name`="jinzhu",`location`=ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)") WHERE `id` = 1

Update from SubQuery

Update a table by using SubQuery

db.Model(&user).Update("company_name", db.Model(&Company{}).Select("name").Where("companies.id = users.company_id"))
// UPDATE "users" SET "company_name" = (SELECT name FROM companies WHERE companies.id = users.company_id);

db.Table("users as u").Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Update("company_name", db.Table("companies as c").Select("name").Where("c.id = u.company_id"))

db.Table("users as u").Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Updates(map[string]interface{}{}{"company_name": db.Table("companies as c").Select("name").Where("c.id = u.company_id")})

Without Hooks/Time Tracking

If you want to skip Hooks methods and don't track the update time when updating, you can use UpdateColumn, UpdateColumns, it works like Update, Updates

// Update single column
db.Model(&user).UpdateColumn("name", "hello")
// UPDATE users SET name='hello' WHERE id = 111;

// Update multiple columns
db.Model(&user).UpdateColumns(User{Name: "hello", Age: 18})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=18 WHERE id = 111;

// Update selected columns
db.Model(&user).Select("name", "age").UpdateColumns(User{Name: "hello", Age: 0})
// UPDATE users SET name='hello', age=0 WHERE id = 111;

Returning Data From Modified Rows

Return changed data, only works for database support Returning, for example:

// return all columns
var users []User
DB.Model(&users).Clauses(clause.Returning{}).Where("role = ?", "admin").Update("salary", gorm.Expr("salary * ?", 2))
// UPDATE `users` SET `salary`=salary * 2,`updated_at`="2021-10-28 17:37:23.19" WHERE role = "admin" RETURNING *
// users => []User{{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu", Role: "admin", Salary: 100}, {ID: 2, Name: "jinzhu.2", Role: "admin", Salary: 1000}}

// return specified columns
DB.Model(&users).Clauses(clause.Returning{Columns: []clause.Column{{Name: "name"}, {Name: "salary"}}}).Where("role = ?", "admin").Update("salary", gorm.Expr("salary * ?", 2))
// UPDATE `users` SET `salary`=salary * 2,`updated_at`="2021-10-28 17:37:23.19" WHERE role = "admin" RETURNING `name`, `salary`
// users => []User{{ID: 0, Name: "jinzhu", Role: "", Salary: 100}, {ID: 0, Name: "jinzhu.2", Role: "", Salary: 1000}}

Check Field has changed?

GORM provides Changed method could be used in Before Update Hooks, it will return the field changed or not

The Changed method only works with methods Update, Updates, and it only checks if the updating value from Update / Updates equals the model value, will return true if it is changed and not omitted

func (u *User) BeforeUpdate(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  // if Role changed
	if tx.Statement.Changed("Role") {
    return errors.New("role not allowed to change")
	}

  if tx.Statement.Changed("Name", "Admin") { // if Name or Role changed
    tx.Statement.SetColumn("Age", 18)
  }

  // if any fields changed
	if tx.Statement.Changed() {
		tx.Statement.SetColumn("RefreshedAt", time.Now())
	}
	return nil
}

db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(map[string]interface{"name": "jinzhu2"})
// Changed("Name") => true
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(map[string]interface{"name": "jinzhu"})
// Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not changed
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Select("Admin").Updates(map[string]interface{
  "name": "jinzhu2", "admin": false,
})
// Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not selected to update

db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(User{Name: "jinzhu2"})
// Changed("Name") => true
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(User{Name: "jinzhu"})
// Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not changed
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Select("Admin").Updates(User{Name: "jinzhu2"})
// Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not selected to update

Change Updating Values

To change updating values in Before Hooks, you should use SetColumn unless it is a full updates with Save, for example:

func (user *User) BeforeSave(tx *gorm.DB) (err error) {
  if pw, err := bcrypt.GenerateFromPassword(user.Password, 0); err == nil {
    tx.Statement.SetColumn("EncryptedPassword", pw)
  }

  if tx.Statement.Changed("Code") {
    user.Age += 20
    tx.Statement.SetColumn("Age", user.Age)
  }
}

db.Model(&user).Update("Name", "jinzhu")

v2_release_note


title: GORM 2.0 Release Note layout: page

GORM 2.0 is a rewrite from scratch, it introduces some incompatible-API change and many improvements

Highlights

  • Performance Improvements
  • Modularity
  • Context, Batch Insert, Prepared Statement Mode, DryRun Mode, Join Preload, Find To Map, Create From Map, FindInBatches supports
  • Nested Transaction/SavePoint/RollbackTo SavePoint supports
  • SQL Builder, Named Argument, Group Conditions, Upsert, Locking, Optimizer/Index/Comment Hints supports, SubQuery improvements, CRUD with SQL Expr and Context Valuer
  • Full self-reference relationships support, Join Table improvements, Association Mode for batch data
  • Multiple fields allowed to track create/update time, UNIX (milli/nano) seconds supports
  • Field permissions support: read-only, write-only, create-only, update-only, ignored
  • New plugin system, provides official plugins for multiple databases, read/write splitting, prometheus integrations...
  • New Hooks API: unified interface with plugins
  • New Migrator: allows to create database foreign keys for relationships, smarter AutoMigrate, constraints/checker support, enhanced index support
  • New Logger: context support, improved extensibility
  • Unified Naming strategy: table name, field name, join table name, foreign key, checker, index name rules
  • Better customized data type support (e.g: JSON)

How To Upgrade

  • GORM's developments moved to github.com/go-gorm, and its import path changed to gorm.io/gorm, for previous projects, you can keep using github.com/jinzhu/gorm GORM V1 Document
  • Database drivers have been split into separate projects, e.g: github.com/go-gorm/sqlite, and its import path also changed to gorm.io/driver/sqlite

Install

go get gorm.io/gorm
// **NOTE** GORM `v2.0.0` released with git tag `v1.20.0`

Quick Start

import (
  "gorm.io/gorm"
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlite"
)

func init() {
  db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{})

  // Most CRUD API kept compatibility
  db.AutoMigrate(&Product{})
  db.Create(&user)
  db.First(&user, 1)
  db.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)
  db.Model(&user).Omit("Role").Updates(map[string]interface{}{"Name": "jinzhu", "Role": "admin"})
  db.Delete(&user)
}

Major Features

The release note only cover major changes introduced in GORM V2 as a quick reference list

Context Support

  • Database operations support context.Context with the WithContext method
  • Logger also accepts context for tracing
db.WithContext(ctx).Find(&users)

Batch Insert

To efficiently insert large number of records, pass a slice to the Create method. GORM will generate a single SQL statement to insert all the data and backfill primary key values, hook methods will be invoked too.

var users = []User{{Name: "jinzhu1"}, {Name: "jinzhu2"}, {Name: "jinzhu3"}}
db.Create(&users)

for _, user := range users {
  user.ID // 1,2,3
}

You can specify batch size when creating with CreateInBatches, e.g:

var users = []User{{Name: "jinzhu_1"}, ...., {Name: "jinzhu_10000"}}

// batch size 100
db.CreateInBatches(users, 100)

Prepared Statement Mode

Prepared Statement Mode creates prepared stmt and caches them to speed up future calls

// globally mode, all operations will create prepared stmt and cache to speed up
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{PrepareStmt: true})

// session mode, create prepares stmt and speed up current session operations
tx := db.Session(&Session{PrepareStmt: true})
tx.First(&user, 1)
tx.Find(&users)
tx.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)

DryRun Mode

Generates SQL without executing, can be used to check or test generated SQL

stmt := db.Session(&Session{DryRun: true}).Find(&user, 1).Statement
stmt.SQL.String() //=> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = $1 // PostgreSQL
stmt.SQL.String() //=> SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `id` = ?  // MySQL
stmt.Vars         //=> []interface{}{1}

Join Preload

Preload associations using INNER JOIN, and will handle null data to avoid failing to scan

db.Joins("Company").Joins("Manager").Joins("Account").Find(&users, "users.id IN ?", []int{1,2})

Find To Map

Scan result to map[string]interface{} or []map[string]interface{}

var result map[string]interface{}
db.Model(&User{}).First(&result, "id = ?", 1)

Create From Map

Create from map map[string]interface{} or []map[string]interface{}

db.Model(&User{}).Create(map[string]interface{}{"Name": "jinzhu", "Age": 18})

datas := []map[string]interface{}{
  {"Name": "jinzhu_1", "Age": 19},
  {"name": "jinzhu_2", "Age": 20},
}

db.Model(&User{}).Create(datas)

FindInBatches

Query and process records in batch

result := db.Where("age>?", 13).FindInBatches(&results, 100, func(tx *gorm.DB, batch int) error {
  // batch processing
  return nil
})

Nested Transaction

db.Transaction(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  tx.Create(&user1)

  tx.Transaction(func(tx2 *gorm.DB) error {
    tx.Create(&user2)
    return errors.New("rollback user2") // rollback user2
  })

  tx.Transaction(func(tx2 *gorm.DB) error {
    tx.Create(&user3)
    return nil
  })

  return nil // commit user1 and user3
})

SavePoint, RollbackTo

tx := db.Begin()
tx.Create(&user1)

tx.SavePoint("sp1")
tx.Create(&user2)
tx.RollbackTo("sp1") // rollback user2

tx.Commit() // commit user1

Named Argument

GORM supports use sql.NamedArg, map[string]interface{} as named arguments

db.Where("name1 = @name OR name2 = @name", sql.Named("name", "jinzhu")).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE name1 = "jinzhu" OR name2 = "jinzhu"

db.Where("name1 = @name OR name2 = @name", map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu2"}).First(&result3)
// SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE name1 = "jinzhu2" OR name2 = "jinzhu2" ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

db.Raw(
  "SELECT * FROM users WHERE name1 = @name OR name2 = @name2 OR name3 = @name",
  sql.Named("name", "jinzhu1"), sql.Named("name2", "jinzhu2"),
).Find(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name1 = "jinzhu1" OR name2 = "jinzhu2" OR name3 = "jinzhu1"

db.Exec(
  "UPDATE users SET name1 = @name, name2 = @name2, name3 = @name",
  map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "name2": "jinzhu2"},
)
// UPDATE users SET name1 = "jinzhu", name2 = "jinzhu2", name3 = "jinzhu"

Group Conditions

db.Where(
  db.Where("pizza = ?", "pepperoni").Where(db.Where("size = ?", "small").Or("size = ?", "medium")),
).Or(
  db.Where("pizza = ?", "hawaiian").Where("size = ?", "xlarge"),
).Find(&pizzas)

// SELECT * FROM pizzas WHERE (pizza = 'pepperoni' AND (size = 'small' OR size = 'medium')) OR (pizza = 'hawaiian' AND size = 'xlarge')

SubQuery

// Where SubQuery
db.Where("amount > (?)", db.Table("orders").Select("AVG(amount)")).Find(&orders)

// From SubQuery
db.Table("(?) as u", db.Model(&User{}).Select("name", "age")).Where("age = ?", 18}).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM (SELECT `name`,`age` FROM `users`) as u WHERE age = 18

// Update SubQuery
db.Model(&user).Update(
  "price", db.Model(&Company{}).Select("name").Where("companies.id = users.company_id"),
)

Upsert

clause.OnConflict provides compatible Upsert support for different databases (SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server)

import "gorm.io/gorm/clause"

db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{DoNothing: true}).Create(&users)

db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{
  Columns:   []clause.Column{{Name: "id"}},
  DoUpdates: clause.Assignments(map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "age": 18}),
}).Create(&users)
// MERGE INTO "users" USING *** WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT *** WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET ***; SQL Server
// INSERT INTO `users` *** ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE name="jinzhu", age=18; MySQL

db.Clauses(clause.OnConflict{
  Columns:   []clause.Column{{Name: "id"}},
  DoUpdates: clause.AssignmentColumns([]string{"name", "age"}),
}).Create(&users)
// MERGE INTO "users" USING *** WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT *** WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET "name"="excluded"."name"; SQL Server
// INSERT INTO "users" *** ON CONFLICT ("id") DO UPDATE SET "name"="excluded"."name", "age"="excluded"."age"; PostgreSQL
// INSERT INTO `users` *** ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `name`=VALUES(name),`age=VALUES(age); MySQL

Locking

db.Clauses(clause.Locking{Strength: "UPDATE"}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM `users` FOR UPDATE

db.Clauses(clause.Locking{
  Strength: "SHARE",
  Table: clause.Table{Name: clause.CurrentTable},
}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM `users` FOR SHARE OF `users`

Optimizer/Index/Comment Hints

import "gorm.io/hints"

// Optimizer Hints
db.Clauses(hints.New("hint")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * /*+ hint */ FROM `users`

// Index Hints
db.Clauses(hints.UseIndex("idx_user_name")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM `users` USE INDEX (`idx_user_name`)

// Comment Hints
db.Clauses(hints.Comment("select", "master")).Find(&User{})
// SELECT /*master*/ * FROM `users`;

Check out Hints for details

CRUD From SQL Expr/Context Valuer

type Location struct {
	X, Y int
}

func (loc Location) GormDataType() string {
  return "geometry"
}

func (loc Location) GormValue(ctx context.Context, db *gorm.DB) clause.Expr {
  return clause.Expr{
    SQL:  "ST_PointFromText(?)",
    Vars: []interface{}{fmt.Sprintf("POINT(%d %d)", loc.X, loc.Y)},
  }
}

db.Create(&User{
  Name:     "jinzhu",
  Location: Location{X: 100, Y: 100},
})
// INSERT INTO `users` (`name`,`point`) VALUES ("jinzhu",ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)"))

db.Model(&User{ID: 1}).Updates(User{
  Name:  "jinzhu",
  Point: Point{X: 100, Y: 100},
})
// UPDATE `user_with_points` SET `name`="jinzhu",`point`=ST_PointFromText("POINT(100 100)") WHERE `id` = 1

Check out Customize Data Types for details

Field permissions

Field permissions support, permission levels: read-only, write-only, create-only, update-only, ignored

type User struct {
  Name string `gorm:"<-:create"` // allow read and create
  Name string `gorm:"<-:update"` // allow read and update
  Name string `gorm:"<-"`        // allow read and write (create and update)
  Name string `gorm:"->:false;<-:create"` // createonly
  Name string `gorm:"->"` // readonly
  Name string `gorm:"-"`  // ignored
}

Track creating/updating time/unix (milli/nano) seconds for multiple fields

type User struct {
  CreatedAt time.Time // Set to current time if it is zero on creating
  UpdatedAt int       // Set to current unix seconds on updaing or if it is zero on creating
  Updated   int64 `gorm:"autoUpdateTime:nano"` // Use unix Nano seconds as updating time
  Updated2  int64 `gorm:"autoUpdateTime:milli"` // Use unix Milli seconds as updating time
  Created   int64 `gorm:"autoCreateTime"`      // Use unix seconds as creating time
}

Multiple Databases, Read/Write Splitting

GORM provides multiple databases, read/write splitting support with plugin DB Resolver, which also supports auto-switching database/table based on current struct/table, and multiple sources、replicas supports with customized load-balancing logic

Check out Database Resolver for details

Prometheus

GORM provides plugin Prometheus to collect DBStats and user-defined metrics

Check out Prometheus for details

Naming Strategy

GORM allows users change the default naming conventions by overriding the default NamingStrategy, which is used to build TableName, ColumnName, JoinTableName, RelationshipFKName, CheckerName, IndexName, Check out GORM Config for details

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  NamingStrategy: schema.NamingStrategy{TablePrefix: "t_", SingularTable: true},
})

Logger

  • Context support
  • Customize/turn off the colors in the log
  • Slow SQL log, default slow SQL time is 200ms
  • Optimized the SQL log format so that it can be copied and executed in a database console

Transaction Mode

By default, all GORM write operations run inside a transaction to ensure data consistency, you can disable it during initialization to speed up write operations if it is not required

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  SkipDefaultTransaction: true,
})

DataTypes (JSON as example)

GORM optimizes support for custom types, so you can define a struct to support all databases

The following takes JSON as an example (which supports SQLite, MySQL, Postgres, refer: https://github.com/go-gorm/datatypes/blob/master/json.go)

import "gorm.io/datatypes"

type User struct {
  gorm.Model
  Name       string
  Attributes datatypes.JSON
}

db.Create(&User{
  Name:       "jinzhu",
  Attributes: datatypes.JSON([]byte(`{"name": "jinzhu", "age": 18, "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"], "orgs": {"orga": "orga"}}`)),
}

// Query user having a role field in attributes
db.First(&user, datatypes.JSONQuery("attributes").HasKey("role"))
// Query user having orgs->orga field in attributes
db.First(&user, datatypes.JSONQuery("attributes").HasKey("orgs", "orga"))

Smart Select

GORM allows select specific fields with Select, and in V2, GORM provides smart select mode if you are querying with a smaller struct

type User struct {
  ID     uint
  Name   string
  Age    int
  Gender string
  // hundreds of fields
}

type APIUser struct {
  ID   uint
  Name string
}

// Select `id`, `name` automatically when query
db.Model(&User{}).Limit(10).Find(&APIUser{})
// SELECT `id`, `name` FROM `users` LIMIT 10

Associations Batch Mode

Association Mode supports batch data, e.g:

// Find all roles for all users
db.Model(&users).Association("Role").Find(&roles)

// Delete User A from all user's team
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Delete(&userA)

// Get unduplicated count of members in all user's team
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Count()

// For `Append`, `Replace` with batch data, argument's length need to equal to data's length or will returns error
var users = []User{user1, user2, user3}
// e.g: we have 3 users, Append userA to user1's team, append userB to user2's team, append userA, userB and userC to user3's team
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Append(&userA, &userB, &[]User{userA, userB, userC})
// Reset user1's team to userA,reset user2's team to userB, reset user3's team to userA, userB and userC
db.Model(&users).Association("Team").Replace(&userA, &userB, &[]User{userA, userB, userC})

Delete Associations when deleting

You are allowed to delete selected has one/has many/many2many relations with Select when deleting records, for example:

// delete user's account when deleting user
db.Select("Account").Delete(&user)

// delete user's Orders, CreditCards relations when deleting user
db.Select("Orders", "CreditCards").Delete(&user)

// delete user's has one/many/many2many relations when deleting user
db.Select(clause.Associations).Delete(&user)

// delete user's account when deleting users
db.Select("Account").Delete(&users)

Breaking Changes

We are trying to list big breaking changes or those changes can't be caught by the compilers, please create an issue or pull request here if you found any unlisted breaking changes

Tags

  • GORM V2 prefer write tag name in camelCase, tags in snake_case won't works anymore, for example: auto_increment, unique_index, polymorphic_value, embedded_prefix, check out Model Tags
  • Tags used to specify foreign keys changed to foreignKey, references, check out Associations Tags
  • Not support sql tag

Table Name

TableName will not allow dynamic table name anymore, the result of TableName will be cached for future

func (User) TableName() string {
  return "t_user"
}

Please use Scopes for dynamic tables, for example:

func UserTable(u *User) func(*gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
  return func(db *gorm.DB) *gorm.DB {
    return db.Table("user_" + u.Role)
  }
}

db.Scopes(UserTable(&user)).Create(&user)

Creating and Deleting Tables requires the use of the Migrator

Previously tables could be created and dropped as follows:

db.CreateTable(&MyTable{})
db.DropTable(&MyTable{})

Now you do the following:

db.Migrator().CreateTable(&MyTable{})
db.Migrator().DropTable(&MyTable{})

Foreign Keys

A way of adding foreign key constraints was;

db.Model(&MyTable{}).AddForeignKey("profile_id", "profiles(id)", "NO ACTION", "NO ACTION")

Now you add constraints as follows:

db.Migrator().CreateConstraint(&Users{}), "Profiles")
db.Migrator().CreateConstraint(&Users{}), "fk_users_profiles")

which translates to the following sql code for postgres:

ALTER TABLE `Profiles` ADD CONSTRAINT `fk_users_profiles` FORIEGN KEY (`useres_id`) REFRENCES `users`(`id`))

Method Chain Safety/Goroutine Safety

To reduce GC allocs, GORM V2 will share Statement when using method chains, and will only create new Statement instances for new initialized *gorm.DB or after a New Session Method, to reuse a *gorm.DB, you need to make sure it just after a New Session Method, for example:

db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("test.db"), &gorm.Config{})

// Safe for new initialized *gorm.DB
for i := 0; i < 100; i++ {
  go db.Where(...).First(&user)
}

tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu")
// NOT Safe as reusing Statement
for i := 0; i < 100; i++ {
  go tx.Where(...).First(&user)
}

ctxDB := db.WithContext(ctx)
// Safe after a `New Session Method`
for i := 0; i < 100; i++ {
  go ctxDB.Where(...).First(&user)
}

ctxDB := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").WithContext(ctx)
// Safe after a `New Session Method`
for i := 0; i < 100; i++ {
  go ctxDB.Where(...).First(&user) // `name = 'jinzhu'` will apply to the query
}

tx := db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").Session(&gorm.Session{})
// Safe after a `New Session Method`
for i := 0; i < 100; i++ {
  go tx.Where(...).First(&user) // `name = 'jinzhu'` will apply to the query
}

Check out Method Chain for details

Default Value

GORM V2 won't auto-reload default values created with database function after creating, checkout Default Values for details

Soft Delete

GORM V1 will enable soft delete if the model has a field named DeletedAt, in V2, you need to use gorm.DeletedAt for the model wants to enable the feature, e.g:

type User struct {
  ID        uint
  DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt
}

type User struct {
  ID      uint
  // field with different name
  Deleted gorm.DeletedAt
}

{% note warn %} NOTE: gorm.Model is using gorm.DeletedAt, if you are embedding it, nothing needs to change {% endnote %}

BlockGlobalUpdate

GORM V2 enabled BlockGlobalUpdate mode by default, to trigger a global update/delete, you have to use some conditions or use raw SQL or enable AllowGlobalUpdate mode, for example:

db.Where("1 = 1").Delete(&User{})

db.Raw("delete from users")

db.Session(&gorm.Session{AllowGlobalUpdate: true}).Delete(&User{})

ErrRecordNotFound

GORM V2 only returns ErrRecordNotFound when you are querying with methods First, Last, Take which is expected to return some result, and we have also removed method RecordNotFound in V2, please use errors.Is to check the error, e.g:

err := db.First(&user).Error
errors.Is(err, gorm.ErrRecordNotFound)

Hooks Method

Before/After Create/Update/Save/Find/Delete must be defined as a method of type func(tx *gorm.DB) error in V2, which has unified interfaces like plugin callbacks, if defined as other types, a warning log will be printed and it won't take effect, check out Hooks for details

func (user *User) BeforeCreate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  // Modify current operation through tx.Statement, e.g:
  tx.Statement.Select("Name", "Age")
  tx.Statement.AddClause(clause.OnConflict{DoNothing: true})

  // Operations based on tx will runs inside same transaction without clauses of current one
  var role Role
  err := tx.First(&role, "name = ?", user.Role).Error
  // SELECT * FROM roles WHERE name = "admin"
  return err
}

Update Hooks support Changed to check fields changed or not

When updating with Update, Updates, You can use Changed method in Hooks BeforeUpdate, BeforeSave to check a field changed or not

func (user *User) BeforeUpdate(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  if tx.Statement.Changed("Name", "Admin") { // if Name or Admin changed
    tx.Statement.SetColumn("Age", 18)
  }

  if tx.Statement.Changed() { // if any fields changed
    tx.Statement.SetColumn("Age", 18)
  }
  return nil
}

db.Model(&user).Update("Name", "Jinzhu") // update field `Name` to `Jinzhu`
db.Model(&user).Updates(map[string]interface{}{"name": "Jinzhu", "admin": false}) // update field `Name` to `Jinzhu`, `Admin` to false
db.Model(&user).Updates(User{Name: "Jinzhu", Admin: false}) // Update none zero fields when using struct as argument, will only update `Name` to `Jinzhu`

db.Model(&user).Select("Name", "Admin").Updates(User{Name: "Jinzhu"}) // update selected fields `Name`, `Admin`,`Admin` will be updated to zero value (false)
db.Model(&user).Select("Name", "Admin").Updates(map[string]interface{}{"Name": "Jinzhu"}) // update selected fields exists in the map, will only update field `Name` to `Jinzhu`

// Attention: `Changed` will only check the field value of `Update` / `Updates` equals `Model`'s field value, it returns true if not equal and the field will be saved
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(map[string]interface{"name": "jinzhu2"}) // Changed("Name") => true
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(map[string]interface{"name": "jinzhu"}) // Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not changed
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Select("Admin").Updates(map[string]interface{"name": "jinzhu2", "admin": false}) // Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not selected to update

db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(User{Name: "jinzhu2"}) // Changed("Name") => true
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Updates(User{Name: "jinzhu"})  // Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not changed
db.Model(&User{ID: 1, Name: "jinzhu"}).Select("Admin").Updates(User{Name: "jinzhu2"}) // Changed("Name") => false, `Name` not selected to update

Plugins

Plugin callbacks also need be defined as a method of type func(tx *gorm.DB) error, check out Write Plugins for details

Updating with struct

When updating with struct, GORM V2 allows to use Select to select zero-value fields to update them, for example:

db.Model(&user).Select("Role", "Age").Update(User{Name: "jinzhu", Role: "", Age: 0})

Associations

GORM V1 allows to use some settings to skip create/update associations, in V2, you can use Select to do the job, for example:

db.Omit(clause.Associations).Create(&user)
db.Omit(clause.Associations).Save(&user)

db.Select("Company").Save(&user)

and GORM V2 doesn't allow preload with Set("gorm:auto_preload", true) anymore, you can use Preload with clause.Associations, e.g:

// preload all associations
db.Preload(clause.Associations).Find(&users)

Also, checkout field permissions, which can be used to skip creating/updating associations globally

GORM V2 will use upsert to save associations when creating/updating a record, won't save full associations data anymore to protect your data from saving uncompleted data, for example:

user := User{
  Name:            "jinzhu",
  BillingAddress:  Address{Address1: "Billing Address - Address 1"},
  ShippingAddress: Address{Address1: "Shipping Address - Address 1"},
  Emails:          []Email{
    {Email: "jinzhu@example.com"},
    {Email: "jinzhu-2@example.com"},
  },
  Languages:       []Language{
    {Name: "ZH"},
    {Name: "EN"},
  },
}

db.Create(&user)
// BEGIN TRANSACTION;
// INSERT INTO "addresses" (address1) VALUES ("Billing Address - Address 1"), ("Shipping Address - Address 1") ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// INSERT INTO "users" (name,billing_address_id,shipping_address_id) VALUES ("jinzhu", 1, 2);
// INSERT INTO "emails" (user_id,email) VALUES (111, "jinzhu@example.com"), (111, "jinzhu-2@example.com") ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// INSERT INTO "languages" ("name") VALUES ('ZH'), ('EN') ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// INSERT INTO "user_languages" ("user_id","language_id") VALUES (111, 1), (111, 2) ON DUPLICATE KEY DO NOTHING;
// COMMIT;

Join Table

In GORM V2, a JoinTable can be a full-featured model, with features like Soft DeleteHooks, and define other fields, e.g:

type Person struct {
  ID        int
  Name      string
  Addresses []Address `gorm:"many2many:person_addresses;"`
}

type Address struct {
  ID   uint
  Name string
}

type PersonAddress struct {
  PersonID  int
  AddressID int
  CreatedAt time.Time
  DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt
}

func (PersonAddress) BeforeCreate(db *gorm.DB) error {
  // ...
}

// PersonAddress must defined all required foreign keys, or it will raise error
err := db.SetupJoinTable(&Person{}, "Addresses", &PersonAddress{})

After that, you could use normal GORM methods to operate the join table data, for example:

var results []PersonAddress
db.Where("person_id = ?", person.ID).Find(&results)

db.Where("address_id = ?", address.ID).Delete(&PersonAddress{})

db.Create(&PersonAddress{PersonID: person.ID, AddressID: address.ID})

Count

Count only accepts *int64 as the argument

Transactions

some transaction methods like RollbackUnlessCommitted removed, prefer to use method Transaction to wrap your transactions

db.Transaction(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  // do some database operations in the transaction (use 'tx' from this point, not 'db')
  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Giraffe"}).Error; err != nil {
    // return any error will rollback
    return err
  }

  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Lion"}).Error; err != nil {
    return err
  }

  // return nil will commit the whole transaction
  return nil
})

Checkout Transactions for details

Migrator

  • Migrator will create database foreign keys by default
  • Migrator is more independent, many API renamed to provide better support for each database with unified API interfaces
  • AutoMigrate will alter column's type if its size, precision, nullable changed
  • Support Checker through tag check
  • Enhanced tag setting for index

Checkout Migration for details

type UserIndex struct {
  Name  string `gorm:"check:named_checker,(name <> 'jinzhu')"`
  Name2 string `gorm:"check:(age > 13)"`
  Name4 string `gorm:"index"`
  Name5 string `gorm:"index:idx_name,unique"`
  Name6 string `gorm:"index:,sort:desc,collate:utf8,type:btree,length:10,where:name3 != 'jinzhu'"`
}

Happy Hacking!

<style> li.toc-item { list-style: none; } li.toc-item.toc-level-4 { display: none; } </style>

write_driver


title: Write Driver layout: page

Write new driver

GORM provides official support for sqlite, mysql, postgres, sqlserver.

Some databases may be compatible with the mysql or postgres dialect, in which case you could just use the dialect for those databases.

For others, you can create a new driver, it needs to implement the dialect interface.

type Dialector interface {
	Name() string
	Initialize(*DB) error
	Migrator(db *DB) Migrator
	DataTypeOf(*schema.Field) string
	DefaultValueOf(*schema.Field) clause.Expression
	BindVarTo(writer clause.Writer, stmt *Statement, v interface{})
	QuoteTo(clause.Writer, string)
	Explain(sql string, vars ...interface{}) string
}

Checkout the MySQL Driver as example

write_plugins


title: Write Plugins layout: page

Callbacks

GORM itself is powered by Callbacks, it has callbacks for Create, Query, Update, Delete, Row, Raw, you could fully customize GORM with them as you want

Callbacks are registered into the global *gorm.DB, not the session-level, if you require *gorm.DB with different callbacks, you need to initialize another *gorm.DB

Register Callback

Register a callback into callbacks

func cropImage(db *gorm.DB) {
  if db.Statement.Schema != nil {
    // crop image fields and upload them to CDN, dummy code
    for _, field := range db.Statement.Schema.Fields {
      switch db.Statement.ReflectValue.Kind() {
      case reflect.Slice, reflect.Array:
        for i := 0; i < db.Statement.ReflectValue.Len(); i++ {
          // Get value from field
          if fieldValue, isZero := field.ValueOf(db.Statement.ReflectValue.Index(i)); !isZero {
            if crop, ok := fieldValue.(CropInterface); ok {
              crop.Crop()
            }
          }
        }
      case reflect.Struct:
        // Get value from field
        if fieldValue, isZero := field.ValueOf(db.Statement.ReflectValue); !isZero {
          if crop, ok := fieldValue.(CropInterface); ok {
            crop.Crop()
          }
        }

        // Set value to field
        err := field.Set(db.Statement.ReflectValue, "newValue")
      }
    }

    // All fields for current model
    db.Statement.Schema.Fields

    // All primary key fields for current model
    db.Statement.Schema.PrimaryFields

    // Prioritized primary key field: field with DB name `id` or the first defined primary key
    db.Statement.Schema.PrioritizedPrimaryField

    // All relationships for current model
    db.Statement.Schema.Relationships

    // Find field with field name or db name
    field := db.Statement.Schema.LookUpField("Name")

    // processing
  }
}

db.Callback().Create().Register("crop_image", cropImage)
// register a callback for Create process

Delete Callback

Delete a callback from callbacks

db.Callback().Create().Remove("gorm:create")
// delete callback `gorm:create` from Create callbacks

Replace Callback

Replace a callback having the same name with the new one

db.Callback().Create().Replace("gorm:create", newCreateFunction)
// replace callback `gorm:create` with new function `newCreateFunction` for Create process

Register Callback with orders

Register callbacks with orders

// before gorm:create
db.Callback().Create().Before("gorm:create").Register("update_created_at", updateCreated)

// after gorm:create
db.Callback().Create().After("gorm:create").Register("update_created_at", updateCreated)

// after gorm:query
db.Callback().Query().After("gorm:query").Register("my_plugin:after_query", afterQuery)

// after gorm:delete
db.Callback().Delete().After("gorm:delete").Register("my_plugin:after_delete", afterDelete)

// before gorm:update
db.Callback().Update().Before("gorm:update").Register("my_plugin:before_update", beforeUpdate)

// before gorm:create and after gorm:before_create
db.Callback().Create().Before("gorm:create").After("gorm:before_create").Register("my_plugin:before_create", beforeCreate)

// before any other callbacks
db.Callback().Create().Before("*").Register("update_created_at", updateCreated)

// after any other callbacks
db.Callback().Create().After("*").Register("update_created_at", updateCreated)

Defined Callbacks

GORM has defined some callbacks to power current GORM features, check them out before starting your plugins

Plugin

GORM provides a Use method to register plugins, the plugin needs to implement the Plugin interface

type Plugin interface {
  Name() string
  Initialize(*gorm.DB) error
}

The Initialize method will be invoked when registering the plugin into GORM first time, and GORM will save the registered plugins, access them like:

db.Config.Plugins[pluginName]

Checkout Prometheus as example

git clone https://github.com/go-gorm/gorm.io.git
cd _target_git_dir/pages/docs
for item in *.md; do; printf -- '\n%s\n\n' "# ${item%.*}"; cat ${item}; done
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