pg-to-ts

pg-to-ts generates TypeScript types that match your Postgres database schema.
It works by querying the Postgres metadata schema (pg_catalog) and generating
equivalent TypeScript types, as well as some JavaScript values that can be
helpful for generating queries at runtime.

Usage:

npm install pg-to-ts
pg-to-ts generate -c postgresql://user:pass@host/db -o dbschema.ts

The resulting file looks like:

``ts
// Table product
export interface Product {
id: string;
name: string;
description: string;
created_at: Date;
}
export interface ProductInput {
id?: string;
name: string;
description: string;
created_at?: Date;
}
const product = {
tableName: 'product',
columns: ['id', 'name', 'description', 'created_at'],
requiredForInsert: ['name', 'description'],
} as const;

export interface TableTypes {
product: {
select: Product;
input: ProductInput;
};
}

export const tables = {
product,
};
`

This gives you most of the types you need for static analysis and runtime.

This is a fork of [PYST/schemats][pyst-fork], which is a fork of [SweetIQ/schemats][orig-repo]. Compared to those projects, this fork:

- Drops support for MySQL in favor of deeper support for Postgres.
- Significantly modernizes the infrastructure and dependencies.
- Adds a few new features (see below).

Schema Features

$3

If you set a Postgres comment on a table or column:

`sql
COMMENT ON TABLE product IS 'Table containing products';
COMMENT ON COLUMN product.name IS 'Human-readable product name';
`

Then these come out as JSDoc comments in the schema:

`ts
/* Table containing products /
export interface Product {
id: string;
/* Human-readable product name /
name: string;
description: string;
created_at: Date;
}
`

The TypeScript language service will surface these when it's helpful.

$3

node-postgres returns timestamp columns as JavaScript Date objects. This makes
a lot of sense, but it can lead to problems if you try to serialize them as
JSON, which converts them to strings. This means that the serialized and de-
serialized table types will be different.

By default pg-to-ts will put Date types in your schema file, but if you'd
prefer strings, pass --datesAsStrings. Note that you'll be responsible for
making sure that timestamps/dates really do come back as strings, not Date objects.
See for details.

$3

By default, Postgres json and jsonb columns will be typed as unknown.
This is safe but not very precise, and it can make them cumbersome to work with.
Oftentimes you know what the type should be.

To tell pg-to-ts to use a specific TypeScript type for a json column, use
a JSDoc @type annotation:

`sql
ALTER TABLE product ADD COLUMN metadata jsonb;
COMMENT ON COLUMN product.metadata is 'Additional information @type {ProductMetadata}';
`

On its own, this simply acts as documentation. But if you also specify the
--jsonTypesFile flag, these annotations get incorporated into the schema:

pg-to-ts generate ... --jsonTypesFile './db-types' -o dbschema.ts

Then your dbschema.ts will look like:

`ts
import {ProductMetadata} from './db-types';

interface Product {
id: string;
name: string;
description: string;
created_at: Date;
metadata: ProductMetadata | null;
}
`

Presumably your db-types.ts file will either re-export this type from elsewhere:

`ts
export {ProductMetadata} from './path/to/this-type';
`

or define it itself:

`ts
export interface ProductMetadata {
year?: number;
designer?: string;
starRating?: number;
}
`

Note that, on its own, TypeScript cannot enforce a schema on your json
columns. For that, you'll want a tool like [postgres-json-schema][].

$3

--prefixWithSchemaNames

It will prefix all exports with the schema name. i.e schemaname_tablename. This allows you to easily namespace your exports.

If the schema name is: maxi, then the following exports will be generated for you when using the --prefixWithSchemaNames:

`ts
// Table product
export interface MaxiProduct {
id: string;
name: string;
description: string;
created_at: Date;
}
export interface MaxiProductInput {
id?: string;
name: string;
description: string;
created_at?: Date;
}
const maxi_product = {
tableName: 'maxi.product',
columns: ['id', 'name', 'description', 'created_at'],
requiredForInsert: ['name', 'description'],
} as const;

export interface TableTypes {
maxi_product: {
select: MaxiProduct;
input: MaxiProductInput;
};
}

export const tables = {
maxi_product,
};
`

Command Line Usage

There are a few ways to control pg-to-ts:

$3

pg-to-ts generate -c postgresql://user:pass@host/db -o dbschema.ts

$3

pg-to-ts generate --config path/to/config.json
pg-to-ts generate --config # defaults to pg-to-ts.json
cat pg-to-ts.json

The JSON file has configuration options as top-level keys:

`json
{
"conn": "postgres://user@localhost:5432/postgres",
"output": "/tmp/cli-pg-to-ts-json.ts"
}
`

$3

Flags may also be specified using environment variables prefixed with PG_TO_TS:

PG_TO_TS_CONN=postgres://user@localhost:5432/postgres
PG_TO_TS_OUTPUT=/tmp/cli-env.ts
pg-to-ts generate

Development Quickstart

You'll need a Postgres instance running to do most development work with pg-to-ts.

git clone https://github.com/danvk/pg-to-ts.git
cd pg-to-ts
yarn
yarn build

You can iterate using your own DB schema. Or, to load the test schema, run:

psql postgres://user:pass@host/postgres -a -f test/fixture/pg-to-ts.sql

Then generate a dbschema.ts file by running:

node dist/cli.js generate -c postgresql://user:pass@host/db -o dbschema.ts

You can use yarn build --watch to run tsc` in watch mode.

To run the unit tests:

yarn build
POSTGRES_URL=postgres://user@localhost:5432/postgres yarn test

To run ESLint:

yarn lint

See [SweetIQ/schemats][orig-repo] for the original README.

[orig-repo]: https://github.com/SweetIQ/schemats
[pyst-fork]: https://github.com/PSYT/schemats
[postgres-json-schema]: https://github.com/gavinwahl/postgres-json-schema