Defining a Schema¶

The schema is usually defined within the tables.py file of your Piccolo app.

This reflects the tables in your database. Each table consists of several columns. Here’s a very simple schema:

# tables.py
from piccolo.table import Table
from piccolo.columns import Varchar


class Band(Table):
    name = Varchar(length=100)

For a full list of columns, see column types.

Hint

If you’re using an existing database, see Piccolo’s auto schema generation command, which will save you some time.

Primary Key¶

Piccolo tables are automatically given a primary key column called id, which is an auto incrementing integer.

There is currently experimental support for specifying a custom primary key column. For example:

# tables.py
from piccolo.table import Table
from piccolo.columns import UUID, Varchar


class Band(Table):
    id = UUID(primary_key=True)
    name = Varchar(length=100)

Tablename¶

By default, the name of the table in the database is the Python class name, converted to snakecase. For example Band -> band, and MusicAward -> music_award.

You can specify a custom tablename to use instead.

class Band(Table, tablename="music_band"):
    name = Varchar(length=100)

Connecting to the database¶

In order to create the table and query the database, you need to provide Piccolo with your connection details. See Engines.