Does SQLAlchemy have an equivalent of Django's get_or_create?

FogleBird picture FogleBird · Mar 30, 2010 · Viewed 64.4k times · Source

I want to get an object from the database if it already exists (based on provided parameters) or create it if it does not.

Django's get_or_create (or source) does this. Is there an equivalent shortcut in SQLAlchemy?

I'm currently writing it out explicitly like this:

def get_or_create_instrument(session, serial_number):
    instrument = session.query(Instrument).filter_by(serial_number=serial_number).first()
    if instrument:
        return instrument
    else:
        instrument = Instrument(serial_number)
        session.add(instrument)
        return instrument

Answer

Kevin. picture Kevin. · May 21, 2011

Following the solution of @WoLpH, this is the code that worked for me (simple version):

def get_or_create(session, model, **kwargs):
    instance = session.query(model).filter_by(**kwargs).first()
    if instance:
        return instance
    else:
        instance = model(**kwargs)
        session.add(instance)
        session.commit()
        return instance

With this, I'm able to get_or_create any object of my model.

Suppose my model object is :

class Country(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'countries'
    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    name = Column(String, unique=True)

To get or create my object I write :

myCountry = get_or_create(session, Country, name=countryName)