How to populate a model having foreign key using csv using Flask-SQLAlchemy?

Question

I have 2 model classes as below:

class Domain(db.Model):
    __tablename__ = 'domain'
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    domain_name = db.Column(db.String(30), unique=True)
    mailboxes = db.Column(db.Integer, default=0)

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        self.__dict__.update(kwargs)

    def __repr__(self):
        return '%s'  % self.domain_name


class EmailAccount(db.Model):
    __tablename__ = 'email_account'
    __table_args__ = (
        db.UniqueConstraint('username', 'domain_id', 
                            name='_uq_username_domain'),{}
    )
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    username = db.Column(db.String(30))
    domain_id = db.Column(db.Integer, db.ForeignKey('domain.id'))
    domain = db.relationship('Domain', backref=db.backref('emailaccounts',
                            lazy='dynamic'))
    def __init__(self,**kwargs):
        self.__dict__.update(kwargs)

    def __repr__(self):
         return  '%s@%s ' % (self.username, self.domain)

I have added only the relevant attributes required here in the example. I wish to populate the model using a script by reading a csv file for the data. The script for domain table works well using Flask-SQLAlchemy, but the script for emailaccount table throws out exception. The script is as follows:

#Populate domains from csv
domain_file = "domain.csv"
csv_file = csv.DictReader(open(domain_file, 'rb'), delimiter=',')
for row in csv_file:
    #data type conversion from (csv)string before inserting to table
    for key, value in row.items():
          #some code omitted
        print key, value    
    domain = Domain(**row)
    db.session.add(domain)
    db.session.commit()

#Populate accounts from csv
accounts_file = "accounts.csv"
csv_file = csv.DictReader(open(accounts_file, 'rb'), delimiter=',')

for row in csv_file:
    mdomain_name = ''
    #data type conversion from (csv)string before inserting to table
    for key, value in row.items():
        print key, value
        if key == 'domain':
            mdomain = Domain.query.filter_by(domain_name = value).first()
            mdomain_name = mdomain.domain_name
            mdomain_id = mdomain.id
        if key == 'domain_id':
            value = mdomain_id
    account = EmailAccount(**row)
    db.session.add(account)
    db.session.commit()

Exception thrown is:

File "data.py", line 55, in db.session.add(account)
File ".../local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/scoping.py", line 149, in do return getattr(self.registry(), name)(*args, **kwargs)
File ".../local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 1397, in add self._save_or_update_state(state)
File ".../local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 1415, in _save_or_update_state halt_on=self._contains_state):
File ".../local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/mapper.py", line 1986, in cascade_iterator parent_dict, visited_states, halt_on))
File ".../local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/properties.py", line 930, in cascade_iterator get_all_pending(state, dict_)
File ".../local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/attributes.py", line 761, in get_all_pending ret = [(instance_state(current), current)] AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute '_sa_instance_state'

Pl. revert with the changes in the code in the script for data.py i.e script for uploading data for EmailAccount model which has foreignkey of Domain class. I wish to use Flask-SQLAlchemy only.

Extract of accounts.csv file:

Email Account,legacy_username,password,full_name,quota,is_domain_admin,is_catch_all,disabled_login,disabled_delivery
[email protected],,,,104857600,,,,
[email protected],,,Internal,102400000,,,,
[email protected],,,,102400000,,,, kishorepr,xyz.com,,,,209715200,,,,

Martin Maillard Martin Maillard · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-10T06:55:43

When a row contains the domain key, you retrieve the domain to get its key, but you don't update your row with the domain id.

Then when you do:

account = EmailAccount(**row)

the row object still has the key domain associated with the domain name. Since your EmailAccount class uses the name domain for the relationship, the db thinks it will get a Domain object when in fact, it's getting a string (the name). That is why you get the error AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute '_sa_instance_state'.

Update: this should work

for row in csv_file:
    account_values = {}
    for key, value in row.items():
        if key == 'domain':
            mdomain = Domain.query.filter_by(domain_name = value).first()
            account_values['domain'] = mdomain
        else:
            account_values[key] = value
    account = EmailAccount(account_values)
    db.session.add(account)
    db.session.commit()

How to populate a model having foreign key using csv using Flask-SQLAlchemy?

1 Answers