Database Design - Storing Your Games

🗄️ Database Design

Now that we have our GameVault project running, let’s add the ability to store games! Think of this as creating a digital filing cabinet for all your gaming data.

What we’re building 🎯

We want to store information about games like:

• Title - “The Legend of Zelda”, “Cyberpunk 2077”
• Platform - PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
• Status - Playing, Completed, Wishlist
• Rating - How much you liked it (1-10)
• Notes - Your personal thoughts

1. Create your first entity 📝

   In Framefox, we use entities to represent data. Think of an entity as a template that describes what information we want to store.

   Let’s create our Game entity using the interactive terminal:

   Create entity

   framefox create entity

   Framefox will ask you some questions. Here’s what the real interaction looks like:

   Interactive entity creation

   What is the name of the Entity ?(snake_case)
   
   Entity name: game
   Creating the entity 'game'
   
   Entity 'game' and repository created successfully.
   
   Do you want to add a new property to the entity ?(press enter to quit the terminal)
   
   Property name: title
   
   Property type [?] (str): str
   
   Maximum length (256):
   
   Optional [?] (no):
   
   Property 'title' added to src/entity/game.py
   
   Do you want to add a new property to the entity ?(press enter to quit the terminal)
   
   Property name: platform
   
   Property type [?] (str): str
   
   Maximum length (256):
   
   Optional [?] (no):
   
   Property 'platform' added to src/entity/game.py
   
   Do you want to add a new property to the entity ?(press enter to quit the terminal)
   
   Property name: status
   
   Property type [?] (str): str
   
   Maximum length (256):
   
   Optional [?] (no): yes
   
   Property 'status' added to src/entity/game.py
   
   Do you want to add a new property to the entity ?(press enter to quit the terminal)
   
   Property name: rating
   
   Property type [?] (str): int
   
   Maximum length (256):
   
   Optional [?] (no): yes
   
   Property 'rating' added to src/entity/game.py
   
   Do you want to add a new property to the entity ?(press enter to quit the terminal)
   
   Property name: notes
   
   Property type [?] (str): str
   
   Maximum length (256):
   
   Optional [?] (no): yes
   
   Property 'notes' added to src/entity/game.py
   
   Do you want to add a new property to the entity ?(press enter to quit the terminal)
   
   Property name: [press enter to finish]

   That’s it! Framefox just created your first database entity! 🎉

   What just happened?

   Framefox created:

   • src/entity/game.py - The Game entity using SQLModel
   • src/repository/game_repository.py - Helper methods for working with games

   Each property you add is immediately saved to the entity file. You can see the progress with messages like Property 'title' added to src/entity/game.py

   You don’t need to understand all the code yet. The important thing is that you now have a way to store games!

2. Create the database tables 🛠️

   Now we need to tell the database about our new Game entity. Framefox uses migrations for this:

   Create migration

   framefox database create-migration

   You’ll see something like:

   Migration output

   ✓ Migration created: migrations/versions/20240603_152345_create_game_table.py

   Now apply the migration (create the actual table):

   Apply migration

   framefox database upgrade

   You should see:

   Database upgrade output

   ✓ Running migration 20240603_152345_create_game_table
   ✓ Database schema updated successfully

   🎉 Awesome! Your database now has a games table ready to store data!

   What’s a migration?

   A migration is like a recipe that tells the database how to change its structure. When you add new entities or modify existing ones, Framefox creates migrations automatically. Pretty smart!

What we accomplished 🏆

In just a few minutes, we:

1. ✅ Created our first entity - The Game model with interactive properties
2. ✅ Generated database tables - Using migrations automatically
3. ✅ Set up the database foundation - Ready to store game data
4. ✅ Learned the Framefox workflow - Entity → Migration → Database

Understanding what happened 🤔

The Entity (Game Model)

This is like a blueprint that says “every game should have a title, platform, status, etc.” Framefox created the src/entity/game.py file with all your properties.

The Repository

This is a helper that makes it easy to save, find, and manage games in the database. You got src/repository/game_repository.py for free!

The Migration

This created the actual table in your database where games will be stored. Framefox handled this automatically.

Want to peek under the hood?

If you’re curious, you can look at the generated files:

• src/entity/game.py - See how the Game model is defined
• The migration file in migrations/versions/ - See the SQL commands
• But don’t worry if it looks complex - you don’t need to understand it all yet!

Next steps 🚀

In the next chapter, we’ll:

• Add user accounts to GameVault
• Learn about authentication (login/signup)
• Make sure each user only sees their own games

But right now, you’ve got the database foundation for a real web app! That’s pretty amazing for someone just starting out. 🎉

Ready to add user accounts? Let’s move on to Authentication! 🔐✨