134

I need to query a SQLAlchemy database by its id something similar to

User.query.filter_by(username='peter')

but for id. How do I do this? [Searching over Google and SO didn't help]

2
  • Please provide more details, like equivalent SQL or pseudocode doing what you want. What is "SQLAlchemy database id"? Jul 20, 2011 at 0:13
  • Does your table have an id column?
    – Keith
    Jul 20, 2011 at 2:45

6 Answers 6

188

Query has a get function that supports querying by the primary key of the table, which I assume that id is.

For example, to query for an object with ID of 23:

User.query.get(23)

Note: As a few other commenters and answers have mentioned, this is not simply shorthand for "Perform a query filtering on the primary key". Depending on the state of the SQLAlchemy session, running this code may query the database and return a new instance, or it may return an instance of an object queried earlier in your code without actually querying the database. If you have not already done so, consider reading the documentation on the SQLAlchemy Session to understand the ramifications.

5
  • 12
    Get function also supports multiple primary keys: YourModel.query.get((pk1, pk2)). Notice the tuple. Feb 1, 2018 at 9:36
  • 3
    The get() function queries objects by primary key. If you would like to query by id, you should set id as primary key first.
    – user10875014
    Oct 7, 2019 at 15:46
  • 5
    Since Query.get() is deprecated since 1.4 - is the replacement the session.get(User, 5) ?
    – jave.web
    May 7, 2021 at 13:36
  • @MarceloGazzola please ask a new question in a new thread, and if you need to comment on an old thread, please only comment on a single answer rather than 3 different ones. Thanks. That said, User.query.filter(User.id.in_((23,24,25,58,21))).all() should do what you want.
    – ggorlen
    Apr 18, 2022 at 22:02
  • Sorry, I am having a hard time navigating and grokking the SQLAlchemy documentation. Is the deprecated Query.get() method different than the User.query.get(23) method listed in this question? docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/14/orm/… I want to avoid using a deprecated method, but I am have not been able to figure if I should use User.query.get(23) or not. Thank you for your time 🙏
    – Zhao Li
    Nov 3, 2022 at 1:36
67

You can query a User with id = 1 like this

session.query(User).get(1)

12

get() is not as your expected sometimes. If your transaction was done:

>>> session.query(User).get(1)
[SQL]: BEGIN (implicit)
[SQL]: SELECT user.id AS user_id, user.name AS user_name, user.fullname AS user_fullname
FROM user
WHERE user.id = ?
[SQL]: (1,)
<User(u'ed', u'Ed Jones')>

If you are in a transaction, get() will give you the result object in memory without query the database:

>>> session.query(User).get(1)
<User(u'ed', u'Ed Jones')>

better to use this:

>>> session.query(User.name).filter(User.id == 1).first()
[SQL]: SELECT user.name AS user_name
FROM user
WHERE user.id = ?
 LIMIT ? OFFSET ?
[SQL]: (1, 1, 0)
(u'Edwardo',)
7
  • 1
    How is this behavior unexpected? Nov 17, 2018 at 14:52
  • I mean if you in a transaction (not session.commit yet) the get() seems to give you the result object in memory(without actually query the database), but the filter().first() will always query the database.
    – panda912
    Nov 19, 2018 at 1:41
  • Is it possible to concurrently change the database during the transaction? If not, using get is better due to the increase in efficiency. Nov 19, 2018 at 1:46
  • 1
    as I know the sqlalchemy cannot working with the async stuff( seems only with gevent ), and yes, the get is more efficient.
    – panda912
    Nov 20, 2018 at 6:08
  • 1
    This is a good point but I don't think this is unexpected - this is exactly how every ORM with a cache works...it would be unexpected if it didn't do this Aug 27, 2019 at 15:18
3

If you use tables reflection you might have problems with the solutions given. (The previous solutions here didn't work for me).

What I ended up using was:

session.query(object.__class__).get(id)

(object was retrieved by reflection from the database, this is why you need to use .__class__)

I hope this helps.

0
3

As of SQLAlchemy 2.0, you can use:

with Session(engine) as session:
    user = session.get(User, 1)
    if user is not None:
        print(f'# user: {user.username}')
        print(user)
1

First, you should set id as the primary key.
Then you could use the query.get() method to query objects by id which is already the primary key.

Since the query.get() method to query objects by the primary key.
Inferred from Flask-SQLAlchemy documentation

from flask import Flask
from flask_sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy

app = Flask(__name__)
db = SQLAlchemy()
db.init_app(app)

class User(db.Model):
    __tablename__ = 'users'
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)

def test():
    id = 1
    user = User.query.get(id)

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