Sequelize hasMany, belongsTo, or both?

Question

I want to properly setup one-to-one or one-to-many relationship with sequelize and as a matter of fact it all seems to be working just fine if i use either one of hasOne/ hasMany or belongsTo in my model definition. For example the following associations do create the userId field on their Targets:

    User.hasMany(Email, {
        as: 'emails',
        foreignKey: 'userId',
    })

    User.hasOne(Profile, {
        as: 'profile',
        foreignKey: 'userId',
    })

But almost everywhere in official docs i see something like:

   Projects.hasMany(Tasks);
   Tasks.belongsTo(Projects);

i.e. hasMany AND belongsTo are being used together.

Is this really required or it is enough to use just one of them? Any further explanation would be really valuable. Thanks!

user_2143547 · Answer

Using belongsTo defines the ownership of the associated models. To explain this in more detail I will refer to the example cited from the tutorials

Project.hasMany(Task);
Task.belongsTo(Project);

Assume that you are no longer interested in the tasks of a deleted project. In that case you would have to delete the tasks manually, had you not defined the belongsTo association. belongsTo establishes an ownership of projects over it's tasks and the database will automatically delete the tasks belonging to the deleted project as well. This is called cascading delete and can chain over multiple tables.

If you run the following code snippet

const Project = sequelize.define('project', {
    name: Sequelize.STRING
});
const Task =  sequelize.define('task', {
    name: Sequelize.STRING
});
Project.hasMany(Task);
Task.belongsTo(Project);

in a sequelize script and watch the output

Executing (default): DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `projects`;
Executing (default): CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `projects` (`id` INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, `name` VARCHAR(255), `createdAt` DATETIME NOT NULL, `updatedAt` DATETIME NOT NULL);
Executing (default): PRAGMA INDEX_LIST(`projects`)
Executing (default): DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `tasks`;
Executing (default): CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `tasks` (`id` INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, `name` VARCHAR(255), `createdAt` DATETIME NOT NULL, `updatedAt` DATETIME NOT NULL, `projectId` INTEGER REFERENCES `projects` (`id`) ON DELETE SET NULL ON UPDATE CASCADE);

you will notice the cascading behaviour being set in the creation of the tasks table.

So much said, the final answer is: it depends. The use of belongsTo can come very handy or will be fatal if you would rather keep the tasks of the deleted project. Only use belongsTo if it makes sense in the context of your application.

Sequelize hasMany, belongsTo, or both?

1 Answers