10.
Sibling Relationships
Written by Tim Condon
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In Chapter 9, “Parent Child Relationships”, you learned how to use Fluent to build parent-child relationships between models. This chapter shows you how to implement the other type of relationship: sibling relationships. You’ll learn how to model them in Vapor and how to use them in routes.
Note: This chapter requires that you have set up and configured PostgreSQL. Follow the steps in Chapter 6, “Configuring a Database”, to set up PostgreSQL in Docker and configure the Vapor application.
Sibling relationships
Sibling relationships describe a relationship that links two models to each other. They are also known as many-to-many relationships. Unlike parent-child relationships, there are no constraints between models in a sibling relationship.
For instance, if you model the relationship between pets and toys, a pet can have one or more toys and a toy can be used by one or more pets. In the TIL application, you’ll be able to categorize acronyms. An acronym can be part of one or more categories and a category can contain one or more acronyms.
Creating a category
To implement categories, you’ll need to create a model, a migration, a controller and a pivot. Begin by creating the model.
Category model
In Xcode, create a new file Category.swift in Sources/App/Models. Open the file and insert a basic model for a category:
import Fluent
import Vapor
final class Category: Model, Content {
static let schema = "categories"
@ID
var id: UUID?
@Field(key: "name")
var name: String
init() {}
init(id: UUID? = nil, name: String) {
self.id = id
self.name = name
}
}
import Fluent
struct CreateCategory: Migration {
func prepare(on database: Database) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
database.schema("categories")
.id()
.field("name", .string, .required)
.create()
}
func revert(on database: Database) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
database.schema("categories").delete()
}
}
app.migrations.add(CreateCategory())
Category controller
Now it’s time to create the controller. In Sources/App/Controllers, create a new file called CategoriesController.swift. Open the file and add code for a new controller to create and retrieve categories:
import Vapor
// 1
struct CategoriesController: RouteCollection {
// 2
func boot(routes: RoutesBuilder) throws {
// 3
let categoriesRoute = routes.grouped("api", "categories")
// 4
categoriesRoute.post(use: createHandler)
categoriesRoute.get(use: getAllHandler)
categoriesRoute.get(":categoryID", use: getHandler)
}
// 5
func createHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<Category> {
// 6
let category = try req.content.decode(Category.self)
return category.save(on: req.db).map { category }
}
// 7
func getAllHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<[Category]> {
// 8
Category.query(on: req.db).all()
}
// 9
func getHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<Category> {
// 10
Category.find(req.parameters.get("categoryID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
}
}
let categoriesController = CategoriesController()
try app.register(collection: categoriesController)
Creating a pivot
In Chapter 9, “Parent Child Relationships”, you added a reference to the user in the acronym to create the relationship between an acronym and a user. However, you can’t model a sibling relationship like this as it would be too inefficient to query. If you had an array of acronyms inside a category, to search for all categories of an acronym you’d have to inspect every category. If you had an array of categories inside an acronym, to search for all acronyms in a category you’d have to inspect every acronym. You need a separate model to hold on to this relationship. In Fluent, this is a pivot.
import Fluent
import Foundation
// 1
final class AcronymCategoryPivot: Model {
static let schema = "acronym-category-pivot"
// 1
@ID
var id: UUID?
// 3
@Parent(key: "acronymID")
var acronym: Acronym
// 3
@Parent(key: "categoryID")
var category: Category
// 4
init() {}
// 5
init(
id: UUID? = nil,
acronym: Acronym,
category: Category
) throws {
self.id = id
self.$acronym.id = try acronym.requireID()
self.$category.id = try category.requireID()
}
}
import Fluent
// 1
struct CreateAcronymCategoryPivot: Migration {
// 2
func prepare(on database: Database) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
// 3
database.schema("acronym-category-pivot")
// 4
.id()
// 5
.field("acronymID", .uuid, .required,
.references("acronyms", "id", onDelete: .cascade))
.field("categoryID", .uuid, .required,
.references("categories", "id", onDelete: .cascade))
// 6
.create()
}
// 7
func revert(on database: Database) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
database.schema("acronym-category-pivot").delete()
}
}
app.migrations.add(CreateAcronymCategoryPivot())
@Siblings(
through: AcronymCategoryPivot.self,
from: \.$acronym,
to: \.$category)
var categories: [Category]
// 1
func addCategoriesHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<HTTPStatus> {
// 2
let acronymQuery =
Acronym.find(req.parameters.get("acronymID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
let categoryQuery =
Category.find(req.parameters.get("categoryID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
// 3
return acronymQuery.and(categoryQuery)
.flatMap { acronym, category in
acronym
.$categories
.attach(category, on: req.db)
.transform(to: .created)
}
}
acronymsRoutes.post(
":acronymID",
"categories",
":categoryID",
use: addCategoriesHandler)
Querying the relationship
Acronyms and categories are now linked with a sibling relationship. But this isn’t very useful if you can’t view these relationships! Fluent provides functions that allow you to query these relationships. You’ve already used one above to create the relationship.
Acronym’s categories
Open AcronymsController.swift and add a new route handler after addCategoriesHandler(:_):
// 1
func getCategoriesHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<[Category]> {
// 2
Acronym.find(req.parameters.get("acronymID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
.flatMap { acronym in
// 3
acronym.$categories.query(on: req.db).all()
}
}
acronymsRoutes.get(
":acronymID",
"categories",
use: getCategoriesHandler)
Category’s acronyms
Open Category.swift and add a new property annotated with @Siblings below var name: String:
@Siblings(
through: AcronymCategoryPivot.self,
from: \.$category,
to: \.$acronym)
var acronyms: [Acronym]
// 1
func getAcronymsHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<[Acronym]> {
// 2
Category.find(req.parameters.get("categoryID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
.flatMap { category in
// 3
category.$acronyms.get(on: req.db)
}
}
categoriesRoute.get(
":categoryID",
"acronyms",
use: getAcronymsHandler)
Removing the relationship
Removing a relationship between an acronym and a category is very similar to adding the relationship. Open AcronymsController.swift and add the following below getCategoriesHandler(req:):
// 1
func removeCategoriesHandler(_ req: Request)
throws -> EventLoopFuture<HTTPStatus> {
// 2
let acronymQuery =
Acronym.find(req.parameters.get("acronymID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
let categoryQuery =
Category.find(req.parameters.get("categoryID"), on: req.db)
.unwrap(or: Abort(.notFound))
// 3
return acronymQuery.and(categoryQuery)
.flatMap { acronym, category in
// 4
acronym
.$categories
.detach(category, on: req.db)
.transform(to: .noContent)
}
}
acronymsRoutes.delete(
":acronymID",
"categories",
":categoryID",
use: removeCategoriesHandler)
Where to go from here?
In this chapter, you learned how to implement sibling relationships in Vapor using Fluent. Over the course of this section, you learned how to use Fluent to model all types of relationships and perform advanced queries. The TIL API is fully featured and ready for use by clients.