How can I present a many-to-many relationship using a link table with ScalaQuery or SLICK? - scalaquery

Question

I've asked a similar question recently, and got a great reply on solving a many-to-many relationship problem with Lift Mapper. I looked at the ScalaQuery/SLICK documentation but it does not document an approach to persisting data where link tables are involved. If someone knows how to do many-to-many mapping using SLICK, it would be great if you can share it.

Answer 1

This test (created by Stefan Zeiger) is new in the SLICK test suite, and answers the question quite nicely:
def testManyToMany(): Unit = db withSession {
object A extends Table[(Int, String)]("a") {
def id = column[Int]("id", O.PrimaryKey)
def s = column[String]("s")
def * = id ~ s
def bs = AToB.filter(_.aId === id).flatMap(_.bFK)
}
object B extends Table[(Int, String)]("b") {
def id = column[Int]("id", O.PrimaryKey)
def s = column[String]("s")
def * = id ~ s
def as = AToB.filter(_.bId === id).flatMap(_.aFK)
}
object AToB extends Table[(Int, Int)]("a_to_b") {
def aId = column[Int]("a")
def bId = column[Int]("b")
def * = aId ~ bId
def aFK = foreignKey("a_fk", aId, A)(a => a.id)
def bFK = foreignKey("b_fk", bId, B)(b => b.id)
}
(A.ddl ++ B.ddl ++ AToB.ddl).create
A.insertAll(1 -> "a", 2 -> "b", 3 -> "c")
B.insertAll(1 -> "x", 2 -> "y", 3 -> "z")
AToB.insertAll(1 -> 1, 1 -> 2, 2 -> 2, 2 -> 3)
/*val q1 = for {
a <- A if a.id >= 2
aToB <- AToB if aToB.aId === a.id
b <- B if b.id === aToB.bId
} yield (a.s, b.s)*/
val q1 = for {
a <- A if a.id >= 2
b <- a.bs
} yield (a.s, b.s)
q1.foreach(x => println(" "+x))
assertEquals(Set(("b","y"), ("b","z")), q1.list.toSet)
}
Update:
I'm not quite certain what would be the best way integrate business logic and persistence in Scala (as this is more than OO or FP), so I asked a new question about this. Hope this helps someone else who is also curious about this problem.