Flexible settings

[RWOverdijk]

I've been wanting to use dbml as the foundation for my project, but it's currently held back due to the lack of options to add custom information.

In my case I need, for example, policies and RLS markers. I was thinking of using the table settings for this but this is being validated in a switch statement that only allows headercolor (which shouldn't be in dbml imo, and should instead be part of a "plugin" of sorts that enables the feature for the studio) and notes.

If the settings (or some other mechanism like decorators, custom handles or metadata) allow users to define, validate and implement their own, you open up dbml to many more use cases.

For now I'll try to add settings in my fork, but I think it would be nice as a core thing.

Settings {
  rls: true;
  mt_column: company_id;
}

Table companies [mt_column: id] {
  id UUID [pk, default: `gen_random_uuid()`]
  name VARCHAR(255) [not null]
}

Table services {
  id UUID [pk, default: `gen_random_uuid()`]
  name VARCHAR(255) [not null]
  company_id UUID [ref: > companies.id, not null]
}

Not the best example, but it does more or less illustrate what I'd like to be able to do.

[TeaNguyen]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Indeed, we're considering letting users define & store custom metadata for DB objects with inline and the new Metadata concept.

Something like this:

// ----- Inline metadata & settings -----
Table public.merchants [added_by: "TeaNguyen", owner: "TeaNguyen"] {
    id int [pk, added_by: "TeaNguyen", owner: "TeaNguyen"]
    ...
}

// ----- Custom metadata & settings -----
Metadata <field> public.merchants.id {
    note: '''
        lorem ipsum
        ...
    '''
    color: #000000
    added_by: "TeaNguyen" // custom metadata
}

Metadata <table> public.merchants {
    owner: "TeaNguyen" // custom metadata
}

Metadata <schema> public {
    ...
}

Inner thoughts

Why are we introducing the new Metadata concept? Why don't we simply add custom metadata in column settings, as proposed above?

• Flexible: Allow users to decouple the code definition for (custom) metadata/settings from the physical structure. We believe it will be useful for users in working with DBML in the CI/CD pipeline.
• Clean and legible syntax: We do not want a table/column's code definition to become a muddle after users add a lot of custom metadata to its settings.

Feel free to share your thoughts about this.

[kenpb]

Hello,

I'm also interested in this, for the time being I ended up using a JSON object inside a notes property as a workaround.

The example doesn't show it, but I guess this will also apply to table partials, right? Any ideas of an ETA for this feature?

Salutations