Define Relationships Attributes

Now we are finally in one of the most exciting parts of SQLModel.

Relationship Attributes. ✨

We currently have a team table:

id	name	headquarters
1	Preventers	Sharp Tower
2	Z-Force	Sister Margaret's Bar

And a hero table:

id	name	secret_name	age	team_id
1	Deadpond	Dive Wilson	null	2
2	Rusty-Man	Tommy Sharp	48	1
3	Spider-Boy	Pedro Parqueador	null	1

Now that you know how these tables work underneath and how the model classes represent them, it's time to add a little convenience that will make many operations in code simpler.

Declare Relationship Attributes

Up to now, we have only used the team_id column to connect the tables when querying with select():

{* ./docs_src/tutorial/connect/insert/tutorial001_py310.py ln[1:16] hl[16] *}

This is a plain field like all the others, all representing a column in the table.

But now let's add a couple of new special attributes to these model classes, let's add Relationship attributes.

First, import Relationship from sqlmodel:

{* ./docs_src/tutorial/relationship_attributes/define_relationship_attributes/tutorial001_py310.py ln[1] hl[1] *}

Next, use that Relationship to declare a new attribute in the model classes:

{* ./docs_src/tutorial/relationship_attributes/define_relationship_attributes/tutorial001_py310.py ln[1:19] hl[9,19] *}

What Are These Relationship Attributes

These new attributes are not the same as fields, they don't represent a column directly in the database, and their value is not a singular value like an integer. Their value is the actual entire object that is related.

So, in the case of a Hero instance, if you call hero.team, you will get the entire Team instance object that this hero belongs to. ✨

For example, you could check if a hero belongs to any team (if .team is not None) and then print the team's name:

if hero.team:
    print(hero.team.name)

Relationship Attributes or `None`

Notice that in the Hero class, the type annotation for team is Team | None.

This means that this attribute could be None, or it could be a full Team object.

This is because the related team_id could also be None (or NULL in the database).

If it was required for a Hero instance to belong to a Team, then the team_id would be int instead of int | None, its Field would be Field(foreign_key="team.id") instead of Field(default=None, foreign_key="team.id") and the team attribute would be a Team instead of Team | None.

Relationship Attributes With Lists

And in the Team class, the heroes attribute is annotated as a list of Hero objects, because that's what it will have.

SQLModel (actually SQLAlchemy) is smart enough to know that the relationship is established by the team_id, as that's the foreign key that points from the hero table to the team table, so we don't have to specify that explicitly here.

/// tip

There's a couple of things we'll check again in some of the next chapters, about the list["Hero"] and the back_populates.

But for now, let's first see how to use these relationship attributes.

///

Next Steps

Now let's see some real examples of how to use these new relationship attributes in the next chapters. ✨

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