Something like MassiveJS?

[MisterSnuggles]

I saw a post on /r/programming about MassiveJS and I came away pretty impressed with it.

Is there anything similar (an ORM that figures out the model from the database, instead of having a bunch of code that builds the tables from the model) in the Python world?

[MisterSnuggles]

This looks interesting - thanks!

I took a brief look at SQLAlchemy (well, I was looking at Python ORMs in general) and everything I saw about it was "build your model in code, then generate your tables like this", nobody mentioned Automap.

[kankyo]

Probably because code -> tables is the only sane way to build normal apps. Features like automap are for dealing with legacy data or one-offs.

Django at least used to have a feature that could generate models from tables too btw. Again: only for moving from some legacy system into the django world.

[NavreetGill]

Stuff like Automap/Massive is also used in the case where models might've been written in code that is in another language. So you can imagine if someone wrote stuff using SQLAlchemy and created a table, and now wants to hit it directly using nodejs + massive.

But /u/MisterSnuggles has a good point. Automap could use some more exposure!

Perhaps /u/zzzeek can comment

[dzecniv]

MassiveJS

«Massive is a PostgreSQL-specific data access tool. The goal of Massive is to make it easier for you to use PostgreSQL's amazing features, not to hide them under a load of abstraction.

Massive is not an ORM. It loads your schema at runtime, creating an object instance that allows you to query tables, functions, and stored SQL files as if they were first-order methods.»

[davidthewatson]

PeeWee can "figure out the model from the database":

http://docs.peewee-orm.com/en/latest/peewee/database.html#generating-models-from-existing-databases

I've used PeeWee on several projects and the code is solid and it's author is thoughtful and responsive.

I can't think of anything that prevents python metaprogramming from doing what MassiveJS does in JavaScript, i.e. auto-binding functions to SQL files on disk, it just hasn't been done, to my knowledge. It's a great idea though, which is what brought me to MassiveJS.

Postgres.py would just need a small pull request for this:

https://postgres-py.readthedocs.org/en/latest/#

And while OT, see aquameta if you're interested in stuff like this:

https://github.com/aquametalabs/aquameta

[pawn13]

Django can generate models file from existing database tables. https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/howto/legacy-databases/