Efficiently mapping one-to-many many-to-many database to struct in Golang - sql

Question

Question
When dealing with a one-to-many or many-to-many SQL relationship in Golang, what is the best (efficient, recommended, "Go-like") way of mapping the rows to a struct?
Taking the example setup below I have tried to detail some approaches with Pros and Cons of each but was wondering what the community recommends.
Requirements
Works with PostgreSQL (can be generic but not include MySQL/Oracle specific features)
Efficiency - No brute forcing every combination
No ORM - Ideally using only database/sql and jmoiron/sqlx
Example
For sake of clarity I have removed error handling
Models
type Tag struct {
ID int
Name string
}
type Item struct {
ID int
Tags []Tag
}
Database
CREATE TABLE item (
id INT GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY
);
CREATE TABLE tag (
id INT GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(160),
item_id INT REFERENCES item(id)
);
Approach 1 - Select all Items, then select tags per item
var items []Item
sqlxdb.Select(&items, "SELECT * FROM item")
for i, item := range items {
var tags []Tag
sqlxdb.Select(&tags, "SELECT * FROM tag WHERE item_id = $1", item.ID)
items[i].Tags = tags
}
Pros
Simple
Easy to understand
Cons
Inefficient with the number of database queries increasing proportional with number of items
Approach 2 - Construct SQL join and loop through rows manually
var itemTags = make(map[int][]Tag)
var items = []Item{}
rows, _ := sqlxdb.Queryx("SELECT i.id, t.id, t.name FROM item AS i JOIN tag AS t ON t.item_id = i.id")
for rows.Next() {
var (
itemID int
tagID int
tagName string
)
rows.Scan(&itemID, &tagID, &tagName)
if tags, ok := itemTags[itemID]; ok {
itemTags[itemID] = append(tags, Tag{ID: tagID, Name: tagName,})
} else {
itemTags[itemID] = []Tag{Tag{ID: tagID, Name: tagName,}}
}
}
for itemID, tags := range itemTags {
items = append(Item{
ID: itemID,
Tags: tags,
})
}
Pros
A single database call and cursor that can be looped through without eating too much memory
Cons
Complicated and harder to develop with multiple joins and many attributes on the struct
Not too performant; more memory usage and processing time vs. more network calls
Failed approach 3 - sqlx struct scanning
Despite failing I want to include this approach as I find it to be my current aim of efficiency paired with development simplicity. My hope was by explicitly setting the db tag on each struct field sqlx could do some advanced struct scanning
var items []Item
sqlxdb.Select(&items, "SELECT i.id AS item_id, t.id AS tag_id, t.name AS tag_name FROM item AS i JOIN tag AS t ON t.item_id = i.id")
Unfortunately this errors out as missing destination name tag_id in *[]Item leading me to believe the StructScan is not advanced enough to recursively loop through rows (no criticism - it is a complicated scenario)
Possible approach 4 - PostgreSQL array aggregators and GROUP BY
While I am sure this will not work I have included this untested option to see if it could be improved upon so it may work.
var items = []Item{}
sqlxdb.Select(&items, "SELECT i.id as item_id, array_agg(t.*) as tags FROM item AS i JOIN tag AS t ON t.item_id = i.id GROUP BY i.id")
When I have some time I will try and run some experiments here.

Answer 1

the sql in postgres :
create schema temp;
set search_path = temp;
create table item
(
id INT generated by default as identity primary key
);
create table tag
(
id INT generated by default as identity primary key,
name VARCHAR(160),
item_id INT references item (id)
);
create view item_tags as
select id,
(
select
array_to_json(array_agg(row_to_json(taglist.*))) as array_to_json
from (
select tag.name, tag.id
from tag
where item_id = item.id
) taglist ) as tags
from item ;
-- golang query this maybe
select row_to_json(row)
from (
select * from item_tags
) row;
then golang query this sql:
select row_to_json(row)
from (
select * from item_tags
) row;
and unmarshall to go struct:
pro:
postgres manage the relation of data. add / update data with sql functions.
golang manage business model and logic.
it's easy way.
.

Answer 2

I can suggest another approach which I have used before.
You make a json of the tags in this case in the query and return it.
Pros: You have 1 call to the db, which aggregates the data, and all you have to do is parse the json into an array.
Cons: It's a bit ugly. Feel free to bash me for it.
type jointItem struct {
Item
ParsedTags string
Tags []Tag `gorm:"-"`
}
var jointItems []*jointItem
db.Raw(`SELECT
items.*,
(SELECT CONCAT(
'[',
GROUP_CONCAT(
JSON_OBJECT('id', id,
'name', name
)
),
']'
)) as parsed_tags
FROM items`).Scan(&jointItems)
for _, o := range jointItems {
var tempTags []Tag
if err := json.Unmarshall(o.ParsedTags, &tempTags) ; err != nil {
// do something
}
o.Tags = tempTags
}
Edit: code might behave weirdly so I find it better to use a temporary tags array when moving instead of using the same struct.

Answer 3

You can use carta.Map() from https://github.com/jackskj/carta
It tracks has-many relationships automatically.