Release: 2.1.0b1 | Release Date: January 21, 2026

# SQLAlchemy 2.1 Documentation

# Source code for examples.materialized_paths.materialized_paths

    """Illustrates the "materialized paths" pattern.

    Materialized paths is a way to represent a tree structure in SQL with fast
    descendant and ancestor queries at the expense of moving nodes (which require
    O(n) UPDATEs in the worst case, where n is the number of nodes in the tree). It
    is a good balance in terms of performance and simplicity between the nested
    sets model and the adjacency list model.

    It works by storing all nodes in a table with a path column, containing a
    string of delimited IDs. Think file system paths:

        1
        1.2
        1.3
        1.3.4
        1.3.5
        1.3.6
        1.7
        1.7.8
        1.7.9
        1.7.9.10
        1.7.11

    Descendant queries are simple left-anchored LIKE queries, and ancestors are
    already stored in the path itself. Updates require going through all
    descendants and changing the prefix.

    """

    from sqlalchemy import Column
    from sqlalchemy import create_engine
    from sqlalchemy import func
    from sqlalchemy import Integer
    from sqlalchemy import select
    from sqlalchemy import String
    from sqlalchemy.dialects.postgresql import ARRAY
    from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
    from sqlalchemy.orm import foreign
    from sqlalchemy.orm import relationship
    from sqlalchemy.orm import remote
    from sqlalchemy.orm import Session
    from sqlalchemy.sql.expression import cast

    Base = declarative_base()

    class Node(Base):
        __tablename__ = "node"

        id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True, autoincrement=False)
        path = Column(String(500), nullable=False, index=True)

        # To find the descendants of this node, we look for nodes whose path
        # starts with this node's path.
        descendants = relationship(
            "Node",
            viewonly=True,
            order_by=path,
            primaryjoin=remote(foreign(path)).like(path.concat(".%")),
        )

        # Finding the ancestors is a little bit trickier. We need to create a fake
        # secondary table since this behaves like a many-to-many join.
        secondary = select(
            id.label("id"),
            func.unnest(
                cast(
                    func.string_to_array(
                        func.regexp_replace(path, r"\.?\d+$", ""), "."
                    ),
                    ARRAY(Integer),
                )
            ).label("ancestor_id"),
        ).alias()
        ancestors = relationship(
            "Node",
            viewonly=True,
            secondary=secondary,
            primaryjoin=id == secondary.c.id,
            secondaryjoin=secondary.c.ancestor_id == id,
            order_by=path,
        )

        @property
        def depth(self):
            return len(self.path.split(".")) - 1

        def __repr__(self):
            return f"Node(id={self.id})"

        def __str__(self):
            root_depth = self.depth
            s = [str(self.id)]
            s.extend(
                ((n.depth - root_depth) * "  " + str(n.id))
                for n in self.descendants
            )
            return "\n".join(s)

        def move_to(self, new_parent):
            new_path = new_parent.path + "." + str(self.id)
            for n in self.descendants:
                n.path = new_path + n.path[len(self.path) :]
            self.path = new_path

    if __name__ == "__main__":
        engine = create_engine(
            "postgresql+psycopg2://scott:tiger@localhost/test", echo=True
        )
        Base.metadata.create_all(engine)

        session = Session(engine)

        print("-" * 80)
        print("create a tree")
        session.add_all(
            [
                Node(id=1, path="1"),
                Node(id=2, path="1.2"),
                Node(id=3, path="1.3"),
                Node(id=4, path="1.3.4"),
                Node(id=5, path="1.3.5"),
                Node(id=6, path="1.3.6"),
                Node(id=7, path="1.7"),
                Node(id=8, path="1.7.8"),
                Node(id=9, path="1.7.9"),
                Node(id=10, path="1.7.9.10"),
                Node(id=11, path="1.7.11"),
            ]
        )
        session.flush()
        print(str(session.query(Node).get(1)))

        print("-" * 80)
        print("move 7 under 3")
        session.query(Node).get(7).move_to(session.query(Node).get(3))
        session.flush()
        print(str(session.query(Node).get(1)))

        print("-" * 80)
        print("move 3 under 2")
        session.query(Node).get(3).move_to(session.query(Node).get(2))
        session.flush()
        print(str(session.query(Node).get(1)))

        print("-" * 80)
        print("find the ancestors of 10")
        print([n.id for n in session.query(Node).get(10).ancestors])

        session.close()
        Base.metadata.drop_all(engine)