Ecto v2.1.4 Ecto.Schema

Defines a schema.

An Ecto schema is used to map any data source into an Elixir struct. One of such use cases is to map data coming from a repository, usually a table, into Elixir structs.

Example

defmodule User do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "users" do
    field :name, :string
    field :age, :integer, default: 0
    has_many :posts, Post
  end
end

By default, a schema will automatically generate a primary key which is named id and of type :integer. The field macro defines a field in the schema with given name and type. has_many associates many posts with the user schema.

Schema attributes

Supported attributes, to be set beforehand, for configuring the defined schema.

These attributes are:

  • @primary_key - configures the schema primary key. It expects a tuple {field_name, type, options} with the primary key field name, type (typically :id or :binary_id, but can be any type) and options. Defaults to {:id, :id, autogenerate: true}. When set to false, does not define a primary key in the schema unless composite keys are defined using the options of field.

  • @schema_prefix - configures the schema prefix. Defaults to nil, which generates structs and queries without prefix. When set, the prefix will be used by every built struct and on queries where the current schema is used in from (and only from exclusively). If a schema is used as a join or part of an assoc, @schema_prefix won’t be obeyed. In PostgreSQL, the prefix is called “SCHEMA” (typically set via Postgres’ search_path). In MySQL the prefix points to databases.

  • @foreign_key_type - configures the default foreign key type used by belongs_to associations. Defaults to :integer;

  • @timestamps_opts - configures the default timestamps type used by timestamps. Defaults to [type: :naive_datetime, usec: true];

  • @derive - the same as @derive available in Kernel.defstruct/1 as the schema defines a struct behind the scenes;

The advantage of configuring the schema via those attributes is that they can be set with a macro to configure application wide defaults.

For example, if your database does not support autoincrementing primary keys and requires something like UUID or a RecordID, you can configure and use:binary_id as your primary key type as follows:

# Define a module to be used as base
defmodule MyApp.Schema do
  defmacro __using__(_) do
    quote do
      use Ecto.Schema
      @primary_key {:id, :binary_id, autogenerate: true}
      @foreign_key_type :binary_id
    end
  end
end

# Now use MyApp.Schema to define new schemas
defmodule MyApp.Comment do
  use MyApp.Schema

  schema "comments" do
    belongs_to :post, MyApp.Post
  end
end

Any schemas using MyApp.Schema will get the :id field with type :binary_id as the primary key. We explain what the :binary_id type entails in the next section.

The belongs_to association on MyApp.Comment will also define a :post_id field with :binary_id type that references the :id field of the MyApp.Post schema.

Primary keys

Ecto supports two ID types, called :id and :binary_id, which are often used as the type for primary keys and associations.

The :id type is used when the primary key is an integer while the :binary_id is used for primary keys in particular binary formats, which may be Ecto.UUID for databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL, or some specific ObjectID or RecordID often imposed by NoSQL databases.

In both cases, both types have their semantics specified by the underlying adapter/database. If you use the :id type with :autogenerate, it means the database will be responsible for auto-generation of the id. This is often the case for primary keys in relational databases which are auto-incremented.

Similarly, the :binary_id type may be generated in the adapter for cases like UUID but it may also be handled by the database if required. In any case, both scenarios are handled transparently by Ecto.

Besides :id and :binary_id, which are often used by primary and foreign keys, Ecto provides a huge variety of types to be used by any column.

Ecto also supports composite primary keys.

Types and casting

When defining the schema, types need to be given. Types are split into two categories, primitive types and custom types.

Primitive types

The primitive types are:

Ecto typeElixir typeLiteral syntax in query
:idinteger1, 2, 3
:binary_idbinary<<int, int, int, ...>>
:integerinteger1, 2, 3
:floatfloat1.0, 2.0, 3.0
:booleanbooleantrue, false
:stringUTF-8 encoded string“hello”
:binarybinary<<int, int, int, ...>>
{:array, inner_type}list[value, value, value, ...]
:mapmap
{:map, inner_type}map
:decimalDecimal

Note: For the {:array, inner_type} and {:map, inner_type} type, replace inner_type with one of the valid types, such as :string.

Since Ecto 2.1, Ecto also supports the Calendar types that are part of Elixir standard library:

Ecto typeElixir type
:dateDate
:timeTime
:naive_datetimeNaiveDateTime
:utc_datetimeDateTime

Timestamps are typically represented by :naive_datetime or :utc_datetime. The naive datetime uses Elixir’s NaiveDateTime which has no timezone information while :utc_datetime uses a DateTime and expects the time_zone to be set to UTC.

Custom types

Besides providing primitive types, Ecto allows custom types to be implemented by developers, allowing Ecto behaviour to be extended.

A custom type is a module that implements the Ecto.Type behaviour. By default, Ecto provides the following custom types:

Custom typeDatabase typeElixir type
Ecto.UUID:uuiduuid-string

Read the Ecto.Type documentation for more information on implementing your own types.

Finally, schemas can also have virtual fields by passing the virtual: true option. These fields are not persisted to the database and can optionally not be type checked by declaring type :any.

The map type

The map type allows developers to store an Elixir map directly in the database:

# In your migration
create table(:users) do
  add :data, :map
end

# In your schema
field :data, :map

# Now in your code
user = Repo.insert! %User{data: %{"foo" => "bar"}}

Keep in mind that we advise the map keys to be strings or integers instead of atoms. Atoms may be accepted depending on how maps are serialized but the database will always return atom keys as strings due to security reasons.

In order to support maps, different databases may employ different techniques. For example, PostgreSQL will store those values in jsonb fields, allowing you to just query parts of it. MySQL and MSSQL, on the other hand, do not yet provide a JSON type, so the value will be stored in a text field.

For maps to work in such databases, Ecto will need a JSON library. By default Ecto will use Poison which needs to be added your deps in mix.exs:

{:poison, "~> 1.0"}

You can however tell Ecto to use any other library by configuring it:

config :ecto, :json_library, YourLibraryOfChoice

If changing the JSON library, remember to recompile Ecto afterwards by cleaning the current build:

mix deps.clean --build ecto

Casting

When directly manipulating the struct, it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure the field values have the proper type. For example, you can create a user struct with an invalid value for age:

iex> user = %User{age: "0"}
iex> user.age
"0"

However, if you attempt to persist the struct above, an error will be raised since Ecto validates the types when sending them to the adapter/database.

Therefore, when working with and manipulating external data, it is recommended to use Ecto.Changeset’s that are able to filter and properly cast external data:

changeset = Ecto.Changeset.cast(%User{}, %{"age" => "0"}, [:age])
user = Repo.insert!(changeset)

You can use Ecto schemas and changesets to cast and validate any kind of data, regardless if the data will be persisted to an Ecto repository or not.

Reflection

Any schema module will generate the __schema__ function that can be used for runtime introspection of the schema:

  • __schema__(:source) - Returns the source as given to schema/2;

  • __schema__(:prefix) - Returns optional prefix for source provided by @schema_prefix schema attribute;

  • __schema__(:primary_key) - Returns a list of primary key fields (empty if there is none);

  • __schema__(:fields) - Returns a list of all non-virtual field names;

  • __schema__(:type, field) - Returns the type of the given non-virtual field;

  • __schema__(:types) - Returns a map of all non-virtual field names and their type;

  • __schema__(:associations) - Returns a list of all association field names;

  • __schema__(:association, assoc) - Returns the association reflection of the given assoc;

  • __schema__(:embeds) - Returns a list of all embedded field names;

  • __schema__(:embed, embed) - Returns the embedding reflection of the given embed;

  • __schema__(:read_after_writes) - Non-virtual fields that must be read back from the database after every write (insert or update);

  • __schema__(:autogenerate_id) - Primary key that is auto generated on insert;

Furthermore, both __struct__ and __changeset__ functions are defined so structs and changeset functionalities are available.

Summary

Functions

Indicates a one-to-one or many-to-one association with another schema

Defines an embedded schema

Indicates an embedding of many schemas

Indicates an embedding of many schemas

Indicates an embedding of a schema

Indicates an embedding of a schema

Defines a field on the schema with given name and type

Indicates a one-to-many association with another schema

Indicates a one-to-one association with another schema

Indicates a many-to-many association with another schema

Defines a schema with a source name and field definitions

Generates :inserted_at and :updated_at timestamp fields

Types

t()
t() :: struct

Functions

belongs_to(name, queryable, opts \\ []) (macro)

Indicates a one-to-one or many-to-one association with another schema.

The current schema belongs to zero or one records of the other schema. The other schema often has a has_one or a has_many field with the reverse association.

You should use belongs_to in the table that contains the foreign key. Imagine a company <-> employee relationship. If the employee contains the company_id in the underlying database table, we say the employee belongs to company.

In fact, when you invoke this macro, a field with the name of foreign key is automatically defined in the schema for you.

Options

  • :foreign_key - Sets the foreign key field name, defaults to the name of the association suffixed by _id. For example, belongs_to :company will define foreign key of :company_id

  • :references - Sets the key on the other schema to be used for the association, defaults to: :id

  • :define_field - When false, does not automatically define a :foreign_key field, implying the user is defining the field manually elsewhere

  • :type - Sets the type of automatically defined :foreign_key. Defaults to: :integer and can be set per schema via @foreign_key_type

  • :on_replace - The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise (default), :mark_as_invalid, :nilify, :update, or :delete. See Ecto.Changeset’s section on related data for more info.

  • :defaults - Default values to use when building the association

  • :primary_key - if the underlying belongs_to field is a primary key

Examples

defmodule Comment do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "comments" do
    belongs_to :post, Post
  end
end

# The post can come preloaded on the comment record
[comment] = Repo.all(from(c in Comment, where: c.id == 42, preload: :post))
comment.post #=> %Post{...}

If you need custom options on the underlying field, you can define the field explicitly and then pass define_field: false to belongs_to:

defmodule Comment do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "comments" do
    field :post_id, :integer, ... # custom options
    belongs_to :post, Post, define_field: false
  end
end

Polymorphic associations

One common use case for belongs to associations is to handle polymorphism. For example, imagine you have defined a Comment schema and you wish to use it for commenting on both tasks and posts.

Some abstractions would force you to define some sort of polymorphic association with two fields in your database:

* commentable_type
* commentable_id

The problem with this approach is that it breaks references in the database. You can’t use foreign keys and it is very inefficient, both in terms of query time and storage.

In Ecto, we have three ways to solve this issue. The simplest is to define multiple fields in the Comment schema, one for each association:

* task_id
* post_id

Unless you have dozens of columns, this is simpler for the developer, more DB friendly and more efficient in all aspects.

Alternatively, because Ecto does not tie a schema to a given table, we can use separate tables for each association. Let’s start over and define a new Comment schema:

defmodule Comment do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "abstract table: comments" do
    # This will be used by associations on each "concrete" table
    field :assoc_id, :integer
  end
end

Notice we have changed the table name to “abstract table: comments”. You can choose whatever name you want, the point here is that this particular table will never exist.

Now in your Post and Task schemas:

defmodule Post do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "posts" do
    has_many :comments, {"posts_comments", Comment}, foreign_key: :assoc_id
  end
end

defmodule Task do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "tasks" do
    has_many :comments, {"tasks_comments", Comment}, foreign_key: :assoc_id
  end
end

Now each association uses its own specific table, “posts_comments” and “tasks_comments”, which must be created on migrations. The advantage of this approach is that we never store unrelated data together, also ensuring we keep database references fast and correct.

When using this technique, the only limitation is that you cannot build comments directly. For example, the command below

Repo.insert!(%Comment{})

will attempt to use the abstract table. Instead, one should use

Repo.insert!(build_assoc(post, :comments))

where build_assoc/3 is defined in Ecto. You can also use assoc/2 in both Ecto and in the query syntax to easily retrieve associated comments to a given post or task:

# Fetch all comments associated with the given task
Repo.all(assoc(task, :comments))

Or all comments in a given table:

Repo.all from(c in {"posts_comments", Comment}), ...)

The third and final option is to use many_to_many/3 to define the relationships between the resources. In this case, the comments table won’t have the foreign key, instead there is a intermediary table responsible for associating the entries:

defmodule Comment do
  use Ecto.Schema
  schema "comments" do
    # ...
  end
end

In your posts and tasks:

defmodule Post do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "posts" do
    many_to_many :comments, Comment, join_through: "posts_comments"
  end
end

defmodule Task do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "tasks" do
    many_to_many :comments, Comment, join_through: "tasks_comments"
  end
end

See many_to_many/3 for more information on this particular approach.

embedded_schema(list) (macro)

Defines an embedded schema.

An embedded schema does not require a source name and it does not include a metadata field.

Embedded schemas by default set the primary key type to :binary_id but such can be configured with the @primary_key attribute.

embeds_many(name, schema, opts \\ []) (macro)

Indicates an embedding of many schemas.

The current schema has zero or more records of the other schema embedded inside of it. Embeds have all the things regular schemas have.

It is recommended to declare your embeds_many/3 field with type {:array, :map} and default value of [] at the database level. In fact, Ecto will automatically translate nil values from the database into empty lists for embeds many (this behaviour is specific to embeds_many/3 fields in order to mimic has_many/3).

The embedded may or may not have a primary key. Ecto use the primary keys to detect if an embed is being updated or not. If a primary is not present and you still want the list of embeds to be updated, :on_replace must be set to :delete, forcing all current embeds to be deleted and replaced by new ones whenever a new list of embeds is set.

For encoding and decoding of embeds, please read the docs for embeds_one/3.

Options

  • :on_replace - The action taken on associations when the embed is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise (default), :mark_as_invalid, or :delete. See Ecto.Changeset’s section on related data for more info.

Examples

defmodule Order do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "orders" do
    embeds_many :items, Item
  end
end

defmodule Item do
  use Ecto.Schema

  embedded_schema do
    field :name
  end
end

# The items are loaded with the order
order = Repo.get!(Order, 42)
order.items #=> [%Item{...}, ...]

Adding and removal of embeds can only be done via the Ecto.Changeset API so Ecto can properly track the embed life-cycle:

# Order has no items
order = Repo.get!(Order, 42)
order.items
# => []

items  = [%Item{title: "Soap"}]

# Generate a changeset
changeset = Ecto.Changeset.change(order)

# Put a one or more new items
changeset = Ecto.Changeset.put_embed(changeset, :items, items)

# Update the order and fetch items
items = Repo.update!(changeset).items

# Items are generated with a unique identification
items
# => [%Item{id: "20a97d94-f79b-4e63-a875-85deed7719b7", title: "Soap"}]

Inline embedded schema

The schema module can be defined inline in the parent schema in simple cases:

defmodule Parent do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "parents" do
    field :name, :string

    embeds_many :children, Child do
      field :name, :string
      field :age,  :integer
    end
  end
end

When defining an inline embed, the :primary_key option may be given to customize the embed primary key type.

Defining embedded schema in such a way will define a Parent.Child module with the appropriate struct. In order to properly cast the embedded schema. When casting the inline-defined embedded schemas you need to use the :with option of cast_embed/3 to provide the proper function to do the casting. For example:

def changeset(schema, params) do
  schema
  |> cast(params, [:name])
  |> cast_embed(:children, with: &child_changeset/2)
end

defp child_changeset(schema, params) do
  schema
  |> cast(params, [:name, :age])
end
embeds_many(name, schema, opts, list) (macro)

Indicates an embedding of many schemas.

For options and examples see documentation of embeds_many/3.

embeds_one(name, schema, opts \\ []) (macro)

Indicates an embedding of a schema.

The current schema has zero or one records of the other schema embedded inside of it. It uses a field similar to the :map type for storage, but allows embeds to have all the things regular schema can.

You must declare your embeds_one/3 field with type :map at the database level.

The embedded may or may not have a primary key. Ecto use the primary keys to detect if an embed is being updated or not. If a primary is not present, :on_replace should be set to either :update or :delete if there is a desire to either update or delete the current embed when a new one is set.

Options

  • :on_replace - The action taken on associations when the embed is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise (default), :mark_as_invalid, :update, or :delete. See Ecto.Changeset’s section on related data for more info.

Examples

defmodule Order do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "orders" do
    embeds_one :item, Item
  end
end

defmodule Item do
  use Ecto.Schema

  # A required field for all embedded documents
  @primary_key {:id, :binary_id, autogenerate: true}
  schema "" do
    field :name
  end
end

# The item is loaded with the order
order = Repo.get!(Order, 42)
order.item #=> %Item{...}

Adding and removal of embeds can only be done via the Ecto.Changeset API so Ecto can properly track the embed life-cycle:

order = Repo.get!(Order, 42)
item  = %Item{title: "Soap"}

# Generate a changeset
changeset = Ecto.Changeset.change(order)

# Put a new embed to the changeset
changeset = Ecto.Changeset.put_embed(changeset, :item, item)

# Update the order, and fetch the item
item = Repo.update!(changeset).item

# Item is generated with a unique identification
item
# => %Item{id: "20a97d94-f79b-4e63-a875-85deed7719b7", title: "Soap"}

Inline embedded schema

The schema module can be defined inline in the parent schema in simple cases:

defmodule Parent do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "parents" do
    field :name, :string

    embeds_one :child, Child do
      field :name, :string
      field :age,  :integer
    end
  end
end

When defining an inline embed, the :primary_key option may be given to customize the embed primary key type.

Defining embedded schema in such a way will define a Parent.Child module with the appropriate struct. In order to properly cast the embedded schema. When casting the inline-defined embedded schemas you need to use the :with option of cast_embed/3 to provide the proper function to do the casting. For example:

def changeset(schema, params) do
  schema
  |> cast(params, [:name])
  |> cast_embed(:child, with: &child_changeset/2)
end

defp child_changeset(schema, params) do
  schema
  |> cast(params, [:name, :age])
end

Encoding and decoding

Because many databases do not support direct encoding and decoding of embeds, it is often emulated by Ecto by using specific encoding and decoding rules.

For example, PostgreSQL will store embeds on top of JSONB columns, which means types in embedded schemas won’t go through the usual dump->DB->load cycle but rather encode->DB->decode->cast. This means that, when using embedded schemas with databases like PG or MySQL, make sure all of your types can be JSON encoded/decoded correctly. Ecto provides this guarantee for all built-in types.

embeds_one(name, schema, opts, list) (macro)

Indicates an embedding of a schema.

For options and examples see documentation of embeds_one/3.

field(name, type \\ :string, opts \\ []) (macro)

Defines a field on the schema with given name and type.

Options

  • :default - Sets the default value on the schema and the struct. The default value is calculated at compilation time, so don’t use expressions like DateTime.utc_now or Ecto.UUID.generate as they would then be the same for all records

  • :autogenerate - Annotates the field to be autogenerated before insertion if value is not set. It will call the autogenerate/0 function in the field’s type.

  • :read_after_writes - When true, the field is always read back from the database after insert and updates.

    For relational databases, this means the RETURNING option of those statements is used. For this reason, MySQL does not support this option and will raise an error if a schema is inserted/updated with read after writes fields.

  • :virtual - When true, the field is not persisted to the database. Notice virtual fields do not support :autogenerate nor :read_after_writes.

  • :primary_key - When true, the field is used as part of the composite primary key

has_many(name, queryable, opts \\ []) (macro)

Indicates a one-to-many association with another schema.

The current schema has zero or more records of the other schema. The other schema often has a belongs_to field with the reverse association.

Options

  • :foreign_key - Sets the foreign key, this should map to a field on the other schema, defaults to the underscored name of the current schema suffixed by _id

  • :references - Sets the key on the current schema to be used for the association, defaults to the primary key on the schema

  • :through - Allow this association to be defined in terms of existing associations. Read the section on :through associations for more info

  • :on_delete - The action taken on associations when parent record is deleted. May be :nothing (default), :nilify_all and :delete_all. Notice :on_delete may also be set in migrations when creating a reference. If supported, relying on the database via migrations is preferred. :nilify_all and :delete_all will not cascade to child records unless set via database migrations.

  • :on_replace - The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise (default), :mark_as_invalid, :nilify, :update, or :delete. See Ecto.Changeset’s section on related data for more info.

  • :defaults - Default values to use when building the association

Examples

defmodule Post do
  use Ecto.Schema
  schema "posts" do
    has_many :comments, Comment
  end
end

# Get all comments for a given post
post = Repo.get(Post, 42)
comments = Repo.all assoc(post, :comments)

# The comments can come preloaded on the post struct
[post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :comments))
post.comments #=> [%Comment{...}, ...]

has_many/has_one :through

Ecto also supports defining associations in terms of other associations via the :through option. Let’s see an example:

defmodule Post do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "posts" do
    has_many :comments, Comment
    has_one :permalink, Permalink

    # In the has_many :through example below, the `:comments`
    # in the list [:comments, :author] refers to the
    # `has_many :comments` in the Post own schema and the
    # `:author` refers to the `belongs_to :author` of the
    # Comment's schema (the module below).
    # (see the description below for more details)
    has_many :comments_authors, through: [:comments, :author]

    # Specify the association with custom source
    has_many :tags, {"posts_tags", Tag}
  end
end

defmodule Comment do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "comments" do
    belongs_to :author, Author
    belongs_to :post, Post
    has_one :post_permalink, through: [:post, :permalink]
  end
end

In the example above, we have defined a has_many :through association named :comments_authors. A :through association always expects a list and the first element of the list must be a previously defined association in the current module. For example, :comments_authors first points to :comments in the same module (Post), which then points to :author in the next schema, Comment.

This :through association will return all authors for all comments that belongs to that post:

# Get all comments for a given post
post = Repo.get(Post, 42)
authors = Repo.all assoc(post, :comments_authors)

Although we used the :through association in the example above, Ecto also allows developers to dynamically build the through associations using the Ecto.assoc/2 function:

assoc(post, [:comments, :author])

In fact, given :through associations are read-only, using the Ecto.assoc/2 format is the preferred mechanism for working with through associations. Use the schema-based one only if you need to store the through data alongside of the parent struct, in specific cases such as preloading.

:through associations can also be preloaded. In such cases, not only the :through association is preloaded but all intermediate steps are preloaded too:

[post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :comments_authors))
post.comments_authors #=> [%Author{...}, ...]

# The comments for each post will be preloaded too
post.comments #=> [%Comment{...}, ...]

# And the author for each comment too
hd(post.comments).author #=> %Author{...}

When the :through association is expected to return one or zero items, has_one :through should be used instead, as in the example at the beginning of this section:

# How we defined the association above
has_one :post_permalink, through: [:post, :permalink]

# Get a preloaded comment
[comment] = Repo.all(Comment) |> Repo.preload(:post_permalink)
comment.post_permalink #=> %Permalink{...}
has_one(name, queryable, opts \\ []) (macro)

Indicates a one-to-one association with another schema.

The current schema has zero or one records of the other schema. The other schema often has a belongs_to field with the reverse association.

Options

  • :foreign_key - Sets the foreign key, this should map to a field on the other schema, defaults to the underscored name of the current schema suffixed by _id

  • :references - Sets the key on the current schema to be used for the association, defaults to the primary key on the schema

  • :through - If this association must be defined in terms of existing associations. Read the section in has_many/3 for more information

  • :on_delete - The action taken on associations when parent record is deleted. May be :nothing (default), :nilify_all and :delete_all. Notice :on_delete may also be set in migrations when creating a reference. If supported, relying on the database via migrations is preferred. :nilify_all and :delete_all will not cascade to child records unless set via database migrations.

  • :on_replace - The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise (default), :mark_as_invalid, :nilify, or :delete. See Ecto.Changeset’s section on related data for more info.

  • :defaults - Default values to use when building the association

Examples

defmodule Post do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "posts" do
    has_one :permalink, Permalink

    # Specify the association with custom source
    has_one :category, {"posts_categories", Category}
  end
end

# The permalink can come preloaded on the post struct
[post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :permalink))
post.permalink #=> %Permalink{...}
many_to_many(name, queryable, opts \\ []) (macro)

Indicates a many-to-many association with another schema.

The association happens through a join schema or source, containing foreign keys to the associated schemas. For example, the association below:

# from MyApp.Post
many_to_many :tags, MyApp.Tag, join_through: "posts_tags"

is backed by relational databases through a join table as follows:

[Post] <-> [posts_tags] <-> [Tag]
  id   <--   post_id
              tag_id    -->  id

More information on the migration for creating such a schema is shown below.

Options

  • :join_through - specifies the source of the associated data. It may be a string, like “posts_tags”, representing the underlying storage table or an atom, like MyApp.PostTag, representing a schema. This option is required.

  • :join_keys - specifies how the schemas are associated. It expects a keyword list with two entries, the first being how the join table should reach the current schema and the second how the join table should reach the associated schema. In the example above, it defaults to: [post_id: :id, tag_id: :id]. The keys are inflected from the schema names.

  • :on_delete - The action taken on associations when the parent record is deleted. May be :nothing (default) or :delete_all. :delete_all will only remove data from the join source, never the associated records. Notice :on_delete may also be set in migrations when creating a reference. If supported, relying on the database via migrations is preferred. :nilify_all and :delete_all will not cascade to child records unless set via database migrations.

  • :on_replace - The action taken on associations when the record is replaced when casting or manipulating parent changeset. May be :raise (default), :mark_as_invalid, or :delete. :delete will only remove data from the join source, never the associated records. See Ecto.Changeset’s section on related data for more info.

  • :defaults - Default values to use when building the association

  • :unique - When true, checks if the associated entries are unique. This is done by checking the primary key of the associated entries during repository operations. Keep in mind this does not guarantee uniqueness at the database level. For such it is preferred to set a unique index in the database. For example: create unique_index(:posts_tags, [:post_id, :tag_id])

Removing data

If you attempt to remove associated many_to_many data, Ecto will always remove data from the join schema and never from the target associations be it by setting :on_replace to :delete, :on_delete to :delete_all or by using changeset functions such as Ecto.Changeset.put_assoc/3. For example, if a Post has a many to many relationship with Tag, setting :on_delete to :delete_all will only delete entries from the “posts_tags” table in case Post is deleted.

Migration

How your migration should be structured depends on the value you pass in :join_through. If :join_through is simply a string, representing a table, you may define a table without primary keys and you must not include any further columns, as those values won’t be set by Ecto:

create table(:posts_tags, primary_key: false) do
  add :post_id, references(:posts)
  add :tag_id, references(:tags)
end

However, if your :join_through is a schema, like MyApp.PostTag, your join table may be structured as any other table in your codebase, including timestamps:

create table(:posts_tags) do
  add :post_id, references(:posts)
  add :tag_id, references(:tags)
  timestamps
end

Because :join_through contains a schema, in such cases, autogenerated values and primary keys will be automatically handled by Ecto.

Examples

defmodule Post do
  use Ecto.Schema
  schema "posts" do
    many_to_many :tags, Tag, join_through: "posts_tags"
  end
end

# Let's create a post and a tag
post = Repo.insert!(%Post{})
tag = Repo.insert!(%Tag{name: "introduction"})

# We can associate at any time post and tags together using changesets
post
|> Repo.preload(:tags) # Load existing data
|> Ecto.Changeset.change() # Build the changeset
|> Ecto.Changeset.put_assoc(:tags, [tag]) # Set the association
|> Repo.update!

# In a later moment, we may get all tags for a given post
post = Repo.get(Post, 42)
tags = Repo.all(assoc(post, :tags))

# The tags may also be preloaded on the post struct for reading
[post] = Repo.all(from(p in Post, where: p.id == 42, preload: :tags))
post.tags #=> [%Tag{...}, ...]

Join Schema Example

You may prefer to use a join schema to handle many_to_many associations. The decoupled nature of Ecto allows us to create a “join” struct which belongs_to both sides of the many to many association.

In our example, a User has and belongs to many Organizations

defmodule UserOrganization do
  use Ecto.Schema

  @primary_key false
  schema "users_organizations" do
    belongs_to :user, User
    belongs_to :organization, Organization
    timestamps # Added bonus, a join schema will also allow you to set timestamps
  end

  def changeset(struct, params \\ %{}) do
    struct
    |> Ecto.Changeset.cast(params, [:user_id, :organization_id])
    |> Ecto.Changeset.validate_required([:user_id, :organization_id])
    # Maybe do some counter caching here!
  end
end

defmodule User do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "users" do
    many_to_many :organizations, Organization, join_through: UserOrganization
  end
end

defmodule Organization do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "organizations" do
    many_to_many :users, User, join_through: UserOrganization
  end
end

# Then to create the association, pass in the ID's of an existing
# User and Organization to UserOrganization.changeset
changeset = UserOrganization.changeset(%UserOrganization{}, %{user_id: id, organization_id: id})

case Repo.insert(changeset) do
  {:ok, assoc} -> # Assoc was created!
  {:error, changeset} -> # Handle the error
end
schema(source, list) (macro)

Defines a schema with a source name and field definitions.

timestamps(opts \\ []) (macro)

Generates :inserted_at and :updated_at timestamp fields.

The fields generated by this macro will automatically be set to the current time when inserting and updating values in a repository.

Options

  • :type - the timestamps type, defaults to :naive_datetime.
  • :usec - sets whether microseconds are used in timestamps. Microseconds will be 0 if false. Defaults to true.
  • :inserted_at - the name of the column for insertion times or false
  • :updated_at - the name of the column for update times or false
  • :autogenerate - a module-function-args tuple used for generating both inserted_at and updated_at timestamps

All options can be pre-configured by setting @timestamps_opts.