SQLAlchemy declarative syntax with autoload (reflection) in Pylons

Question

I would like to use autoload to use an existings database. I know how to do it without declarative syntax (model/_init_.py):

def init_model(engine):
    """Call me before using any of the tables or classes in the model"""
    t_events = Table('events', Base.metadata, schema='events', autoload=True, autoload_with=engine)
    orm.mapper(Event, t_events)

    Session.configure(bind=engine)  

class Event(object):
    pass

This works fine, but I would like to use declarative syntax:

class Event(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'events'
    __table_args__ = {'schema': 'events', 'autoload': True}

Unfortunately, this way I get:

sqlalchemy.exc.UnboundExecutionError: No engine is bound to this Table's MetaData. Pass an engine to the Table via autoload_with=<someengine>, or associate the MetaData with an engine via metadata.bind=<someengine>

The problem here is that I don't know where to get the engine from (to use it in autoload_with) at the stage of importing the model (it's available in init_model()). I tried adding

meta.Base.metadata.bind(engine)

to environment.py but it doesn't work. Anyone has found some elegant solution?

Answer 1

OK, I think I figured it out. The solution is to declare the model objects outside the model/__init__.py. I concluded that __init__.py gets imported as the first file when importing something from a module (in this case model) and this causes problems because the model objects are declared before init_model() is called.

To avoid this I created a new file in the model module, e.g. objects.py. I then declared all my model objects (like Event) in this file.

Then, I can import my models like this:

from PRJ.model.objects import Event

Furthermore, to avoid specifying autoload-with for each table, I added this line at the end of init_model():

Base.metadata.bind = engine

This way I can declare my model objects with no boilerplate code, like this:

class Event(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'events'
    __table_args__ = {'schema': 'events', 'autoload': True}

    event_identifiers = relationship(EventIdentifier)

    def __repr__(self):
        return "<Event(%s)>" % self.id