TypeORM relationship: Only IDs instead of whole instances

Question

According to the documentation, in TypeORM a relationship is defined as follows: A user has exactly one profile.

import {Entity, PrimaryGeneratedColumn, Column, OneToOne, JoinColumn} from "typeorm";
import {Profile} from "./Profile";

@Entity()
export class User {

    @PrimaryGeneratedColumn()
    id: number;

    @Column()
    name: string;

    @OneToOne(type => Profile)
    @JoinColumn()
    profile: Profile;

}

Issue

When creating a new user, why do I have to pass a complete instance of the entity (profile: Profile) instead of - as usual - only one ID? Like this:

@OneToOne(type => Profile)
    @JoinColumn()
    profileId: number;

Isn't there another way?

This procedure causes a large, unnecessary overhead, if you have to make 4 queries for 4 foreign keys to get the corresponding instance instead of the ID.

I would be very grateful for help to get around this!

Answer 1

In TypeORM the navigation field (here profile) can be combined with the plain foreign key field (profileId). So you can write:

@Entity()
export class User {

    @PrimaryGeneratedColumn()
    id: number;

    @Column()
    name: string;

    @OneToOne(type => Profile)
    @JoinColumn()
    profile: Profile;

    @Column()
    profileId: number;

}

Then it's up to you if you update the relation with the entity object or only with the profile id.