Tutorial: How to use PostgreSQL

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to use PostgreSQL with your project ✨ 🚀 😊

You can find the result of this tutorial on github here

This tutorial is a natural follow-up of How to write Controllers. You can either go for that tutorial first and come back later or be a rebel, skip it and read on 😊

Index

1. Install Homebrew
2. Install PostgreSQL
3. Create and generate a new project
4. Configure your project to use PostgreSQL

1. Install Homebrew

If you don’t have it yet I highly recommend to get it. It makes it super easy for you to install dependencies like PostgreSQL. To install Homebrew execute the following in your terminal:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

We will also install brew services. It will make it incredibly easy to start the PostgreSQL server and let it start alongside with your mac! It’s awesome ✨!

brew tap homebrew/services

Now whenever you want to know what services are running just execute:

brew services list

2. Install PostgreSQL

Installing PostgreSQL with Homebrew is so easy, what am I even here for 😄?

brew install postgresql

That’s it. Done. Now to init postgresql just execute the following command:

initdb /usr/local/var/postgres

Next start postgresql with:

brew services start postgresql

See how easy brew services makes it? postgresql now starts alongside your mac!

Now let’s create a database that we want to be used by our project. To create a new database we stay in our terminal and just execute:

createdb mycooldb;

Terminal Cheatsheet:

connect to mycooldb database: psql mycooldb
within server list databases: \l
within server to exit server: \q

Alrighty! You are ready for step 3. Create and generate a new project 😊

3. Create and generate a new project

We will use the outcome of the tutorial mentioned in the beginning as a template to create our new project:

vapor new projectName --template=vaporberlin/my-first-controller --branch=vapor-2

Before we generate an Xcode project we would have to change the package name within Package.swift:

// swift-tools-version:4.0
import PackageDescription
let package = Package(
  name: "projectName",  // changed
  products: [
    .library(name: "App", targets: ["App"]),
    .executable(name: "Run", targets: ["Run"])
  ],
dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/vapor/vapor.git", .upToNextMajor(from: "2.1.0")),
    .package(url: "https://github.com/vapor/leaf-provider.git", .upToNextMajor(from: "1.1.0")),
    .package(url: "https://github.com/vapor/fluent-provider.git", .upToNextMajor(from: "1.3.0")),
.package(url: "https://github.com/vapor-community/postgresql-provider.git", .upToNextMajor(from: "2.1.0")) // added
  ],
targets: [
    .target(name: "App", dependencies: ["Vapor", "LeafProvider", "FluentProvider", "PostgreSQLProvider"],
      exclude: [
        "Config",
        "Public",
        "Resources",
    ]),
.target(name: "Run", dependencies: ["App"]),
    .testTarget(name: "AppTests", dependencies: ["App", "Testing"])
  ]
)

Now in the terminal at the root directory projectName/ execute:

vapor update -y

It may take a bit fetching the dependency, but when done you should have a project structure like this:

projectName/
├── Package.swift
├── Sources/
│   ├── App/
│   │   ├── Controllers/
│   │   │   └── UserController.swift
│   │   ├── Models/
│   │   │   └── User.swift
│   │   ├── Routes/
│   │   │   └── Routes.swift
│   │   └── Setup/
│   │       ├── Config+Setup.swift
│   │       └── Droplet+Setup.swift
│   └── Run/
├── Tests/
├── Config/
├── Resources/
├── Public/
├── Dependencies/
└── Products/

If you now cmd+r or run we should be able to access the /user route 😊!

Note: make sure to select Run as a scheme next to your button before running the app

4. Configure your project to use PostgreSQL

Now all we need is a configuration file that holds our database information. Create a new Folder within Config/ and name it secrets/ so all our sensitive configuration files won’t be tracked by git.

Within Config/secrets/ create a file and name it postgresql.json and insert the following configuration:

{
  "hostname": "127.0.0.1",
  "user": "martinlasek",  // use your own mac user
  "password": "",
  "database": "mycooldb",
  "port": 5432
}

NOTE: To find out your mac user execute the following in terminal: whoami

Then we will tell fluent to use postgresql as a driver. In Config/fluent.json:

{
  ...
  "driver": "postgresql",
  ...
}

Lastly we’ll add the PostgreSQLProvider within Setup/Config+Setup.swift:

import LeafProvider
import FluentProvider
import PostgreSQLProvider // added
extension Config {
  public func setup() throws {
    try setupProviders()
    try setupPreparations()
  }
  private func setupProviders() throws {
    try addProvider(LeafProvider.Provider.self)
    try addProvider(FluentProvider.Provider.self)
    try addProvider(PostgreSQLProvider.Provider.self) // added
  }
  private func setupPreparations() throws {
    preparations.append(User.self)
  }
}

Our final cmd+r or run and refresh of /user and that’s it! You successfully configured your project to use a postgresql database 🎉 🚀 🎉

Thank you a lot for reading! If you have any questions or improvements — write a comment! I would love to hear from you! 😊

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