peewee

• a small orm
• written in python
• provides a lightweight querying interface over sql
• uses sql concepts when querying, like joins and where clauses
• supports sqlite, mysql and postgresql
• support for special extensions like hstore and full-text search

For flask integration, including an admin interface and RESTful API, check out flask-peewee.

Examples:

# a simple query selecting a user
User.get(username='charles')

# get the staff and super users
editors = User.select().where(Q(is_staff=True) | Q(is_superuser=True))

# get tweets by editors
Tweet.select().where(user__in=editors)

# how many active users are there?
User.select().where(active=True).count()

# paginate the user table and show me page 3 (users 41-60)
User.select().order_by(('username', 'asc')).paginate(3, 20)

# order users by number of tweets
User.select().annotate(Tweet).order_by(('count', 'desc'))

# another way of expressing the same
User.select({
    User: ['*'],
    Tweet: [Count('id', 'count')]
}).group_by('id').join(Tweet).order_by(('count', 'desc'))

You can use django-style syntax to create select queries:

# how many active users are there?
User.filter(active=True).count()

# get tweets by a specific user
Tweet.filter(user__username='charlie')

# get tweets by editors
Tweet.filter(Q(user__is_staff=True) | Q(user__is_superuser=True))

You can use python operators to create select queries:

# how many active users are there?
User.select().where(User.active == True).count()

# get me all users in their thirties
User.select().where((User.age >= 30) & (User.age < 40))

# get me tweets from today by active users
Tweet.select().join(User).where(
    (Tweet.pub_date >= today) &
    (User.active == True)
)

Learning more

the official peewee cookbook has recipes for common operations and is a good place to get started.

check the documentation for more examples.

specific question? come hang out in the #peewee channel on freenode.irc.net, or post to the mailing list, http://groups.google.com/group/peewee-orm

lastly, peewee runs on python 2.5 or greater, though there is currently no support for python3

Why?

peewee began when I was working on a small app in flask and found myself writing lots of queries and wanting a very simple abstraction on top of the sql. I had so much fun working on it that I kept adding features. My goal has always been, though, to keep the implementation incredibly simple. I've made a couple dives into django's orm but have never come away with a deep understanding of its implementation. peewee is small enough that its my hope anyone with an interest in orms will be able to understand the code without too much trouble.

model definitions and schema creation

smells like django:

import peewee

class Blog(peewee.Model):
    title = peewee.CharField()

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.title

class Entry(peewee.Model):
    title = peewee.CharField(max_length=50)
    content = peewee.TextField()
    pub_date = peewee.DateTimeField()
    blog = peewee.ForeignKeyField(Blog)

    def __unicode__(self):
        return '%s: %s' % (self.blog.title, self.title)

gotta connect:

>>> from peewee import database
>>> database.connect()

create some tables:

>>> Blog.create_table()
>>> Entry.create_table()

foreign keys work like django's

>>> b = Blog(title="Peewee's Big Adventure")
>>> b.save()
>>> e = Entry(title="Greatest movie ever?", content="YES!", blog=b)
>>> e.save()
>>> e.blog
<Blog: Peewee's Big Adventure>
>>> for e in b.entry_set:
...     print e.title
...
Greatest movie ever?

querying

queries come in 4 flavors (select/update/insert/delete).

there's the notion of a query context which is the model being selected or joined on:

User.select().where(active=True).order_by(('username', 'asc'))

since User is the model being selected, the where clause and the order_by will pertain to attributes on the User model. User is the current query context when the .where() and .order_by() are evaluated.

an example using joins:

Tweet.select().where(deleted=False).order_by(('pub_date', 'desc')).join(
    User
).where(active=True)

this will select non-deleted tweets from active users. the first .where() and .order_by() occur when Tweet is the current query context. As soon as the join is evaluated, User becomes the query context and so the following where() pertains to the User model.

now with q objects

for users familiar with django's orm, I've implemented OR queries and complex query nesting using similar notation:

User.select().where(
    Q(is_superuser = True) |
    Q(is_staff = True)
)

SomeModel.select().where(
    (Q(a='A') | Q(b='B')) &
    (Q(c='C') | Q(d='D'))
)

# generates something like:
# SELECT * FROM some_obj
# WHERE ((a = "A" OR b = "B") AND (c = "C" OR d = "D"))

using sqlite

import peewee

database = peewee.SqliteDatabase('my.db')

class BaseModel(peewee.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database

class Blog(BaseModel):
    creator = peewee.CharField()
    name = peewee.CharField()

class Entry(BaseModel):
    creator = peewee.CharField()
    name = peewee.CharField()

using postgresql

you can now use postgresql:

import peewee

database = peewee.PostgresqlDatabase('my_db', user='root')

class BaseModel(peewee.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database

# ... same as above sqlite example ...

using mysql

you can now use MySQL:

import peewee

database = peewee.MySQLDatabase('my_db', user='root')

class BaseModel(peewee.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database

# ... same as above sqlite example ...