Migration to 0.22.0 - DatabaseConnection

Version 0.22.0 migrates from the databases library to native async SQLAlchemy using ormar's DatabaseConnection wrapper. This provides better integration with SQLAlchemy's async ecosystem and improved transaction handling and avoid dependency on achived databases library.

Breaking Changes

Migration to version >= 0.22.0 requires the following changes:

1. Import Change

Replace databases import with DatabaseConnection from ormar:

# ormar < 0.22
import databases
database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")

# ormar >= 0.22
from ormar import DatabaseConnection
database = DatabaseConnection("sqlite+aiosqlite:///db.sqlite")

2. Database URL Format - Async Drivers Required

Database URLs must now use async drivers:

# SQLite - add +aiosqlite
# OLD: "sqlite:///db.sqlite"
# NEW: "sqlite+aiosqlite:///db.sqlite"

# PostgreSQL - use +asyncpg
# OLD: "postgresql://user:pass@localhost/db"
# NEW: "postgresql+asyncpg://user:pass@localhost/db"

# MySQL - use +aiomysql
# OLD: "mysql://user:pass@localhost/db"
# NEW: "mysql+aiomysql://user:pass@localhost/db"

3. Engine Parameter No Longer Needed

The engine parameter in OrmarConfig is no longer required - it's created internally by DatabaseConnection:

# ormar < 0.22
import databases
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine("sqlite:///db.sqlite")

base_ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
    database=database,
    metadata=sqlalchemy.MetaData(),
    engine=engine,  # <- Remove this
)

# ormar >= 0.22
from ormar import DatabaseConnection
import sqlalchemy

database = DatabaseConnection("sqlite+aiosqlite:///db.sqlite")

base_ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
    database=database,
    metadata=sqlalchemy.MetaData(),
    # engine is created internally
)

4. Table Creation

When creating tables, use a sync engine (async engines don't support metadata.create_all()):

import sqlalchemy
from ormar import DatabaseConnection

DATABASE_URL = "sqlite+aiosqlite:///db.sqlite"
database = DatabaseConnection(DATABASE_URL)
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

# Create a sync engine for table creation
sync_engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine(
    DATABASE_URL.replace('+aiosqlite', '')
)
metadata.create_all(sync_engine)

5. Transaction API (Mostly Compatible)

The transaction API remains mostly the same, but now uses context variables and SQLAlchemy savepoints:

# Both versions work the same way
async with database.transaction():
    await Model.objects.create(...)

# Nested transactions use savepoints automatically
async with database.transaction():
    await Model1.objects.create(...)

    async with database.transaction():  # Uses savepoint
        await Model2.objects.create(...)

# force_rollback for testing
async with database.transaction(force_rollback=True):
    # Your test code - will rollback even on success
    pass

# like in databases `force_rollback` can also be used with DatabaseConnection directly to use one global transaction.

Complete Migration Example

# Before (ormar < 0.22)
import databases
import sqlalchemy
import ormar

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()
engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine("sqlite:///db.sqlite")

base_ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
    database=database,
    metadata=metadata,
    engine=engine,
)

class Author(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = base_ormar_config.copy(tablename="authors")

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)

# Create tables
metadata.create_all(engine)

# After (ormar >= 0.22)
import sqlalchemy
import ormar
from ormar import DatabaseConnection

DATABASE_URL = "sqlite+aiosqlite:///db.sqlite"
database = DatabaseConnection(DATABASE_URL)
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

base_ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
    database=database,
    metadata=metadata,
)

class Author(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = base_ormar_config.copy(tablename="authors")

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)

# Create tables with sync engine
sync_engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine(
    DATABASE_URL.replace('+aiosqlite', '')
)
metadata.create_all(sync_engine)

FastAPI Integration

The lifespan pattern remains compatible:

from contextlib import asynccontextmanager
from fastapi import FastAPI

@asynccontextmanager
async def lifespan(_: FastAPI):
    if not database.is_connected:
        await database.connect()

    yield

    if database.is_connected:
        await database.disconnect()

app = FastAPI(lifespan=lifespan)

What Stays the Same

• Model definitions (no changes needed)
• Query API (all methods work the same)
• Field definitions (no changes needed)
• Relation handling (no changes needed)
• Signal decorators (no changes needed)
• Connection lifecycle management API (connect(), disconnect(), is_connected)

---

Migration to 0.20.0 based on pydantic 2.X.X

Version 0.20.0 provides support for pydantic v2.X.X that provides significant speed boost (validation and serialization is written in rust) and cleaner api for developers, at the same time it drops support for pydantic v.1.X.X. There are changes in ormar interface corresponding to changes made in pydantic.

Breaking changes

Migration to version >= 0.20.0 requires several changes in order to work properly.

ormar Model configuration

Instead of defining a Meta class now each of the ormar models require an ormar_config parameter that is an instance of the OrmarConfig class. Note that the attribute must be named ormar_config and be an instance of the config class.

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

# ormar < 0.20
class Album(ormar.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database
        metadata = metadata
        tablename = "albums"


    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    favorite: bool = ormar.Boolean(default=False)

# ormar >= 0.20
class AlbumV20(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
        tablename="albums_v20"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    favorite: bool = ormar.Boolean(default=False)

OrmarConfig api/ parameters

The ormar_config expose the same set of settings as Meta class used to provide. That means that you can use any of the following parameters initializing the config:

metadata: Optional[sqlalchemy.MetaData]
database: Optional[databases.Database]
engine: Optional[sqlalchemy.engine.Engine]
tablename: Optional[str]
order_by: Optional[List[str]]
abstract: bool
queryset_class: Type[QuerySet]
extra: Extra
constraints: Optional[List[ColumnCollectionConstraint]]

BaseMeta equivalent - best practice

Note that to reduce the duplication of code and ease of development it's still recommended to create a base config and provide each of the models with a copy. OrmarConfig provides a convenient copy method for that purpose.

The copy method accepts the same parameters as OrmarConfig init, so you can overwrite if needed, but by default it will return already existing attributes, except for: tablename, order_by and constraints which by default are cleared.

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

base_ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
    database=databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite"),
    metadata=sqlalchemy.MetaData()
)

class AlbumV20(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = base_ormar_config.copy(
        tablename="albums_v20"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)


class TrackV20(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = base_ormar_config.copy(
        tablename="tracks_v20"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)

choices Field parameter is no longer supported.

Before version 0.20 you could provide choices parameter to any existing ormar Field to limit the accepted values. This functionality was dropped, and you should use ormar.Enum field that was designed for this purpose. If you want to keep the database field type (i.e. an Integer field) you can always write a custom validator.

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

# ormar < 0.20
class Artist(ormar.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database
        metadata = metadata


    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    country: str = ormar.String(default=False, max_length=50, choices=["UK", "US", "Vietnam", "Colombia"])

# ormar >= 0.20
from enum import Enum

class Country(str, Enum):
    UK = "UK"
    US = "US"
    VIETNAM = "Vietnam"
    COLOMBIA = "Colombia"

class ArtistV20(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
        tablename="artists_v20"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    country: Country = ormar.Enum(enum_class=Country)

pydantic_only Field parameter is no longer supported

pydantic_only fields were already deprecated and are removed in v 0.20. Ormar allows defining pydantic fields as in ordinary pydantic model.

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

# ormar < 0.20
class Dish(ormar.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database
        metadata = metadata
        tablename = "dishes"


    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    cook: str = ormar.String(max_length=40, pydantic_only=True, default="sam")

# ormar >= 0.20
class DishV20(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
        tablename="dishes_v20"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    cook: str = "sam"  # this is normal pydantic field

property_field decorator is no longer supported

property_field decorator was used to provide a way to pass calculated fields that were included in dictionary/ serialized json representation of the model. Version 2.X of pydantic introduced such a possibility, so you should now switch to the one native to the pydantic.

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy
import pydantic

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

# ormar < 0.20
class Employee(ormar.Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database
        metadata = metadata


    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    first_name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    last_name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)

    @ormar.property_field()
    def full_name(self) -> str:
        return f"{self.first_name} {self.last_name}"

# ormar >= 0.20
class EmployeeV20(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    first_name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    last_name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)

    @pydantic.computed_field()
    def full_name(self) -> str:
        return f"{self.first_name} {self.last_name}"

Deprecated methods

All methods listed below are deprecated and will be removed in version 0.30 of ormar.

dict() becomes the model_dump()

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

class Album(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
        tablename="albums"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    favorite: bool = ormar.Boolean(default=False)

album = Album(name="Dark Side of the Moon")

# ormar < 0.20
album_dict = album.dict()

# ormar >= 0.20
new_album_dict = album.model_dump() 

Note that parameters remain the same i.e. include, exclude etc.

json() becomes the model_dump_json()

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

class Album(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
        tablename="albums"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    favorite: bool = ormar.Boolean(default=False)

album = Album(name="Dark Side of the Moon")

# ormar < 0.20
album_json= album.json()

# ormar >= 0.20
new_album_dict = album.model_dump_json() 

Note that parameters remain the same i.e. include, exclude etc.

construct() becomes the model_construct()

import databases
import ormar
import sqlalchemy

database = databases.Database("sqlite:///db.sqlite")
metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

class Album(ormar.Model):
    ormar_config = ormar.OrmarConfig(
        database=database,
        metadata=metadata,
        tablename="albums"
    )

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100)
    favorite: bool = ormar.Boolean(default=False)

params = {
    "name": "Dark Side of the Moon",
    "favorite": True,
}
# ormar < 0.20
album = Album.construct(**params)

# ormar >= 0.20
album = Album.model_construct(**params)

To read more about construct please refer to pydantic documentation.