CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonflaskflask-sqlalchemymarshmallowflask-marshmallow
NE555
NE555

Reputation: 76

How to group fields when serialising object with Marshmallow?

Problem

How to group fields together when serialising a flat-structured SQLAlchemy object with Marshmallow without changing the flat data structure in the background?

Example

Suppose a SQLAlchemy model in a Flask app like this:

from app import db # db using SQLAlchemy

class Data(db.Model):
  x = db.Column(db.Float(), required=True)
  y = db.Column(db.Float(), required=True)
  d = db.Column(db.Float())

How can I serialise this object so that x and y are nested into coordinates, while maintaining a flat data structure in the background (the model)? The output should look something like this:

{
  "coordinates": {
    "x": 10.56
    "y": 1
  },
  "d": 42.0
}

The problem arises specifically because I use the Data schema with the many=True option. The initialisation is roughly:

schema_data = MomentData()
schema_datas = MomentData(many=True)

Solution Candidates

So this is what I've tried so far, but none of them seemed to work.

Creating a second Schema

Adding a second schema and modifying the Data schema from before yields:

class CoordinatesSchema(Schema):
  x = fields.Float(required=True)
  y = fields.Float(required=True)

class DataSchema(Schema):
  coordinates = fields.Nested(coordinatesSchema, required=True)
  d = fields.Float()

Having that in place raises the problem of having to go through every Data item and manually adding the Coordinates schema. My data is coming from a SQLAlchemy query returning a list of Data objects, so that I can easily dump them using schema_datas.

Using fields.Dict

Since Marshmallows fields module offers a dictionary, I tried that as well.


def DataSchema(Schema):
  coordinates = fields.Dict(keys=fields.String(),
                            value=fields.Float(),
                            required=True,
                            default={
                                 "x": Data.x,
                                 "y": Data.y
                            })
  d = fields.Float()

Doesn't seem to work either, because Marshmallow can't find Data.x and Data.y automatically when using schema_datas.dump().

Using Self-Nesting

The most logical solution path would be to self-nest. But (from what I understood reading the documentation) self-nesting only refers to nesting one or more other instances within the object. I want to nest the same instance.

class DataSchema(Schema):
  x = fields.Float(required=True, load_only=True)
  y = fields.Float(required=True, load_only=True)

  coordinates = fields.Nested(
        lambda: DataSchema(only=('x', 'y')),
        dump_only=True)

But unfortunately this also didn't work.

Using Decorator @pre_dump

Inspired by this issue on Marshmallow's Github page, I tried to use the @pre_dump decorator to achieve the desired outcome, but failed again.


class CoordinatesSchema(Schema):
  x = fields.Float(required=True)
  y = fields.Float(required=True)

class DataSchema(Schema):
  coordinates = fields.Nested(coordinatesSchema, required=True)
  d = fields.Float()

  @pre_dump
  def group_coordinates(self, data, many):
    return {
      "coordinates": {
        "x": data.x,
        "y": data.y
        },
      "d": data.d
    }

But I can't figure out how to do it properly...

So my question is, what am I doing wrong and how can I solve this problem?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 815

Answers (1)

Bruno Gavand
Bruno Gavand

Reputation: 1

After struggling myself with same issue, here is the solution (not so far from what you suggested) :

class CoordinatesSchema(Schema):
  x = fields.Float(required=True)
  y = fields.Float(required=True)

class DataSchema(Schema):
  coordinates = fields.Nested(coordinatesSchema, required=True)
  d = fields.Float()

  @pre_dump
  def group_coordinates(self, data, many):
    data.coordinates = data
    return(data)

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions