Create or update one to many relationship in Prisma

Question

I'm trying to update a one to many relationship in Prisma. My schema looks like this

model A_User {
  id            Int          @id
  username      String
  age           Int
  bio           String       @db.VarChar(1000)
  createdOn     DateTime     @default(now())
  features      A_Features[]
}

model A_Features {
  id       Int     @id @default(autoincrement())
  description    String
  A_User   A_User? @relation(fields: [a_UserId], references: [id])
  a_UserId Int?
}

I'm trying to add a couple of new features to user with id: 1, or update them if they are already there.

I'm trying doing something like

const post = await prisma.a_User.update({
        where: { id: 1},
        data: { 
            features: {
                upsert: [
                    { description: 'first feature'},
                    { description: 'second feature'}
                ]
            }
        }
    })

The compiler isn't happy, it tells me

Type '{ features: { upsert: { description: string; }[]; }; }' is not assignable to type '(Without<A_UserUpdateInput, A_UserUncheckedUpdateInput> & A_UserUncheckedUpdateInput) | (Without<...> & A_UserUpdateInput)'.
  Object literal may only specify known properties, and 'features' does not exist in type '(Without<A_UserUpdateInput, A_UserUncheckedUpdateInput> & A_UserUncheckedUpdateInput) | (Without<...> & A_UserUpdateInput)'.ts(2322)
index.d.ts(1572, 5): The expected type comes from property 'data' which is declared here on type '{ select?: A_UserSelect; include?: A_UserInclude; data: (Without<A_UserUpdateInput, A_UserUncheckedUpdateInput> & A_UserUncheckedUpdateInput) | (Without<...> & A_UserUpdateInput); where: A_UserWhereUniqueInput; }'
(property) features: {
    upsert: {
        description: string;
    }[];
}

I can't work out how to do it nor I can find clear help in the documentation. Any idea on how to implement it or where I can find some examples?

Answer 1

I'm providing my solution based on the clarifications you provided in the comments. First I would make the following changes to your Schema.

Changing the schema

model A_User {
  id        Int          @id
  username  String
  age       Int
  bio       String       @db.VarChar(1000)
  createdOn DateTime     @default(now())
  features  A_Features[]
}

model A_Features {
  id          Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  description String   @unique
  users       A_User[]
}

Notably, the relationship between A_User and A_Features is now many-to-many. So a single A_Features record can be connected to many A_User records (as well as the opposite).

Additionally, A_Features.description is now unique, so it's possible to uniquely search for a certain feature using just it's description.

You can read the Prisma Guide on Relations to learn more about many-to-many relations.

Writing the update query

Again, based on the clarification you provided in the comments, the update operation will do the following:

• Overwrite existing features in a A_User record. So any previous features will be disconnected and replaced with the newly provided ones. Note that the previous features will not be deleted from A_Features table, but they will simply be disconnected from the A_User.features relation.

• Create the newly provided features that do not yet exist in the A_Features table, and Connect the provided features that already exist in the A_Features table.

You can perform this operation using two separate update queries. The first update will Disconnect all previously connected features for the provided A_User. The second query will Connect or Create the newly provided features in the A_Features table. Finally, you can use the transactions API to ensure that both operations happen in order and together. The transactions API will ensure that if there is an error in any one of the two updates, then both will fail and be rolled back by the database.

//inside async function
const disconnectPreviouslyConnectedFeatures =  prisma.a_User.update({
    where: {id: 1},
    data: {
        features: {
            set: []  // disconnecting all previous features
        }
    }
})

const connectOrCreateNewFeatures =  prisma.a_User.update({
    where: {id: 1},
    data: {
        features: {
            // connect or create the new features
            connectOrCreate: [
                {
                    where: {
                        description: "'first feature'"
                    }, create: {
                        description: "'first feature'"
                    }
                },
                {
                    where: {
                        description: "second feature"
                    }, create: {
                        description: "second feature"
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    }
})

// transaction to ensure either BOTH operations happen or NONE of them happen.
await prisma.$transaction([disconnectPreviouslyConnectedFeatures, connectOrCreateNewFeatures ])

If you want a better idea of how connect, disconnect and connectOrCreate works, read the Nested Writes section of the Prisma Relation queries article in the docs.

Answer 2

The TypeScript definitions of prisma.a_User.update can tell you exactly what options it takes. That will tell you why the 'features' does not exist in type error is occurring. I imagine the object you're passing to data takes a different set of options than you are specifying; if you can inspect the TypeScript types, Prisma will tell you exactly what options are available.

If you're trying to add new features, and update specific ones, you would need to specify how Prisma can find an old feature (if it exists) to update that one. Upsert won't work in the way that you're currently using it; you need to provide some kind of identifier to the upsert call in order to figure out if the feature you're adding already exists.

https://www.prisma.io/docs/reference/api-reference/prisma-client-reference/#upsert

You need at least create (what data to pass if the feature does NOT exist), update (what data to pass if the feature DOES exist), and where (how Prisma can find the feature that you want to update or create.)

You also need to call upsert multiple times; one for each feature you're looking to update or create. You can batch the calls together with Promise.all in that case.

const upsertFeature1Promise = prisma.a_User.update({
  data: {
    // upsert call goes here, with "create", "update", and "where"
  }
});
const upsertFeature2Promise = prisma.a_User.update({
  data: {
    // upsert call goes here, with "create", "update", and "where"
  }
});
const [results1, results2] = await Promise.all([
  upsertFeaturePromise1,
  upsertFeaturePromise2
]);