Trying to understand UnmappedInstanceError using SQLAlchemy

Question

I have been reading the SQLAlchemy docs, but I don't understand them. The error (UnmappedInstanceError) says something isn't mapped. What isn't mapped? I really don't get sqlalchemy and I want to go back to using naked sqlite, but so many people recommend this, so I thought I should learn it. Here is the traceback:

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1836, in __call__
return self.wsgi_app(environ, start_response)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1820, in wsgi_app
response = self.make_response(self.handle_exception(e))

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1403, in handle_exception
reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1817, in wsgi_app
response = self.full_dispatch_request()

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1477, in full_dispatch_request
rv = self.handle_user_exception(e)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1381, in handle_user_exception
reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1475, in full_dispatch_request
rv = self.dispatch_request()

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py", line 1461, in dispatch_request
return self.view_functions[rule.endpoint](**req.view_args)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj2\app\views.py", line 170, in add_manentry
db.session.add(q)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\sqlalchemy\orm\scoping.py", line 149, in do
return getattr(self.registry(), name)(*args, **kwargs)

File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj\venv\lib\site-packages\sqlalchemy\orm\session.py", line 1452, in add
raise exc.UnmappedInstanceError(instance)

UnmappedInstanceError: Class '__builtin__.unicode' is not mapped

Here is the applicable code:

@app.route('/addm', methods=['POST'])
def add_mentry():
    if not session.get('logged_in'):
        abort(401)
    form = MForm(request.form)
    filename = ""
    if request.method == 'POST':
        cover = request.files['cover']
        if cover and allowed_file(cover.filename):
            filename = secure_filename(cover.filename)
            cover = cover.save(os.path.join(app.config['UPLOAD_FOLDER'], filename))

    q = request.form['name']
    # do for 12 more fields
    db.session.add(q)
    db.session.commit()
    flash('New entry was successfully posted')
    return redirect(url_for('moutput'))

Answer 1

When you are adding a non-model-object into the session, you will be getting UnmappedInstanceError.

In your case, q was probably an unicode string, not a model object. (It appears that you are using Python 2.x because in Python 3.x, it will say str), this was the line of the root cause for UnmappedInstanceError: Class '__builtin__.unicode' is not mapped:

  File "C:\Users\Me\repos\mandj2\app\views.py", line 170, in add_manentry
  db.session.add(q)