Thanks again for your answers.
Although this seems like an elegant solution, I would still want to know is
what is the reason for this limitation:
"If someone can be both a Doctor and a Patient at the same time, I don't
think 2 classes inheriting from User can really work any more" - Why?
Amit
On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 5:26:28 PM UTC+2, Simon King wrote:
>
> If someone can be both a Doctor and a Patient at the same time, I don't
> think 2 classes inheriting from User can really work any more. Off the top
> of my head, I might start with something like this (completely untested,
> and the names are horrible, but hopefully you get the idea)
>
> class User(Base):
> __tablename__ = 'user'
> id = sa.Column(...)
> email = sa.Column(...)
>
> patientdata = saorm.relationship("Patient", back_populates="user")
> doctordata = saorm.relationship("Doctor", back_populates="user")
>
> @property
> def is_patient(self):
> return (self.patientdata is not None)
>
> @property
> def is_doctor(self):
> return (self.doctordata is not None)
>
> class Patient(Base):
> __tablename__ = 'patient'
> id = sa.Column(sa.ForeignKey(User.id), primary_key=True)
> user = saorm.relationship(User, back_populates="patientdata")
>
> class Doctor(Base):
> __tablename__ = 'doctor'
> id = sa.Column(sa.ForeignKey(User.id), primary_key=True)
> user = saorm.relationship(User, back_populates="doctordata")
>
>
> You'd need to make some changes to the way you work with these objects
> though. For example, when creating a new Patient, you'd need to explicitly
> create the associated User object as well.
>
> Hope that helps,
>
> Simon
>
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 10:34 AM, amit geron <amit....@gmail.com
> <javascript:>> wrote:
>
>> Hi Simon,
>>
>> Thanks for the reply.
>>
>> I will try to better explain what I was trying to do:
>>
>> - Created a general class User, which has a index (id) and unique
>> attribute (email).
>> - Created 2 sub-classes of User: Patient and Doctor, with primary
>> foreign key User.id.
>> - Basic assumption was that a patient is never a Dr. and vise-versa,
>> hence if a user has registered as a Patient, he can never register as a
>> Dr.
>> (and vise-versa).
>> - The latter assumption was broken with a new requirement, that a
>> user may register with the same email both as a Dr. and a Patient.
>> - As the tables were defined, it was possible (via MySQL commands) to
>> add entries for an existing user in the opposite table, simply by
>> specifying the user id upon insertion.
>>
>> So, the question is how can I do the last step using SQLAlchemy supported
>> methods. If this is a design issue, please explain and advise what should
>> be changed in order to support this structure.
>>
>> P.S. I changed the approach to solve this issue, but still want to gain
>> better understanding of how to design and implement relationships). I've
>> decided to completely separate the classes and remove the User class.
>>
>> On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 11:45:15 AM UTC+2, Simon King wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't understand exactly what you are trying to do here, from a
>>> database perspective. Your table setup suggests that you are using
>>> joined-table inheritance:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/rel_1_0/orm/inheritance.html#joined-table-inheritance
>>>
>>> ie. attributes that are common to all classes in the hierarchy live in
>>> the base table, and attributes that are specific to one of the subclasses
>>> live in a subclass-specific table. So when you have a user of type A, with
>>> id 1, the common attributes will be in the user table with id 1, and the
>>> A-specific attributes will be in the A table, again with id 1.
>>>
>>> If that's really what you've got, then it doesn't make any sense to
>>> create a B object with an id of 1, since half of its identity would be the
>>> same row as your A instance. I don't think SQLAlchemy will allow that.
>>>
>>> There are other inheritance patterns that might make sense for your
>>> situation, or if you are trying to share state between and A and a B
>>> instance then you probably don't want inheritance at all, but a shared
>>> relationship instead. If you can tell us what you are trying to do, we
>>> might be able to suggest an approach.
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 4:46 PM, amit geron <amit....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As I already mentioned, I tried your suggestion but with no success.
>>>> The names are unique anyway, and I don't understand the how it's related
>>>> to
>>>> my question..
>>>>
>>>> Could you please provide a working example that will demonstrate how 2
>>>> objects inherit from the same class, and hold the same primary key that is
>>>> a primary foreign key of the derived class?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, November 30, 2015 at 5:59:38 PM UTC+2, Jonathan Vanasco
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It should still work as a reference because the pacakge you use
>>>>> doesn't override this.
>>>>>
>>>>> The extension's API makes this clear:
>>>>> http://flask-sqlalchemy.pocoo.org/2.1/api/#models
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _tablename__
>>>>> <http://flask-sqlalchemy.pocoo.org/2.1/api/#flask.ext.sqlalchemy.Model.__tablename__>
>>>>>
>>>>> The name of the table in the database. This is required by SQLAlchemy;
>>>>> however, Flask-SQLAlchemy will set it automatically if a model has a
>>>>> primary key defined. If the __table__ or __tablename__ is set
>>>>> explicitly, that will be used instead.
>>>>>
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>>>
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