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Version: 1.2.x 🚧

Many to Many

A many-to-many relation is formed by three tables, where two tables are related via a junction table. As an example, a Cake has many Filling and Filling are shared by many Cake via an intermediate entity CakeFilling.

Defining the Relation

On the Cake entity, implement the Related<filling::Entity> trait.

Relation in SeaORM is an arrow: it has from and to. cake_filling::Relation::Cake defines CakeFilling -> Cake. Calling rev reverses it into Cake -> CakeFilling.

Chaining this with cake_filling::Relation::Filling which defines CakeFilling -> Filling resulting in Cake -> CakeFilling -> Filling.

entity/cake.rs
impl Related<super::filling::Entity> for Entity {
// The final relation is Cake -> CakeFilling -> Filling
fn to() -> RelationDef {
super::cake_filling::Relation::Filling.def()
}

fn via() -> Option<RelationDef> {
// The original relation is CakeFilling -> Cake,
// after `rev` it becomes Cake -> CakeFilling
Some(super::cake_filling::Relation::Cake.def().rev())
}
}

Similarly, on the Filling entity, implement the Related<cake::Entity> trait. First, join with intermediate table via the inverse of cake_filling::Relation::Filling relation, then join to Cake entity with cake_filling::Relation::Cake relation.

entity/filling.rs
impl Related<super::cake::Entity> for Entity {
fn to() -> RelationDef {
super::cake_filling::Relation::Cake.def()
}

fn via() -> Option<RelationDef> {
Some(super::cake_filling::Relation::Filling.def().rev())
}
}

Defining the Inverse Relation

On the CakeFilling entity, its cake_id attribute is referencing the primary key of Cake entity, and its filling_id attribute is referencing the primary key of Filling entity.

To define the inverse relation:

  1. Add two new variants Cake and Filling to the Relation enum.
  2. Define both relations with Entity::belongs_to().
entity/cake_filling.rs
#[derive(Copy, Clone, Debug, EnumIter)]
pub enum Relation {
Cake,
Filling,
}

impl RelationTrait for Relation {
fn def(&self) -> RelationDef {
match self {
Self::Cake => Entity::belongs_to(super::cake::Entity)
.from(Column::CakeId)
.to(super::cake::Column::Id)
.into(),
Self::Filling => Entity::belongs_to(super::filling::Entity)
.from(Column::FillingId)
.to(super::filling::Column::Id)
.into(),
}
}
}

Alternatively, the definition can be shortened by the DeriveRelation macro, where the following eliminates the need for the RelationTrait implementation above:

#[derive(Copy, Clone, Debug, EnumIter, DeriveRelation)]
pub enum Relation {
#[sea_orm(
belongs_to = "super::cake::Entity",
from = "Column::CakeId",
to = "super::cake::Column::Id"
)]
Cake,
#[sea_orm(
belongs_to = "super::filling::Entity",
from = "Column::FillingId",
to = "super::filling::Column::Id"
)]
Filling,
}
Note that the implementation of `Related` with `via` and `to` methods will not be generated if there exists multiple paths via an intermediate table.

For example, in the schema defined below, there are two paths:

  • Path 1. users <-> users_votes <-> bills
  • Path 2. users <-> users_saved_bills <-> bills

Therefore, the implementation of Related<R> will not be generated

CREATE TABLE users
(
id uuid PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT uuid_generate_v1mc(),
email TEXT UNIQUE NOT NULL,
...
);
CREATE TABLE bills
(
id uuid PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT uuid_generate_v1mc(),
...
);
CREATE TABLE users_votes
(
user_id uuid REFERENCES users (id) ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE,
bill_id uuid REFERENCES bills (id) ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE,
vote boolean NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT users_bills_pkey PRIMARY KEY (user_id, bill_id)
);
CREATE TABLE users_saved_bills
(
user_id uuid REFERENCES users (id) ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE,
bill_id uuid REFERENCES bills (id) ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE,
CONSTRAINT users_saved_bills_pkey PRIMARY KEY (user_id, bill_id)
);