:)
1. Whether `Selectable[]` can be used to query for a subset of fields and how.
Right — this is not (currently) supported. I guess if you had wide tables of large values, this could be an important optimisation, but it hasn't been a need for me as yet.
2. In the `to_jsonb(authors)` example, what would you get back in the `author` field if there were multiple authors with the same `author.id` value? An array of `author.Selectable` objects? This part is awesome but brittle, isn't it?
Multiple authors with the same id isn't going to happen, since id is intended as a primary key, so I'd argue that the example as given isn't brittle. On the other hand, there's a fair question about what happens for many-to-many joins, and since my use case hasn't yet required this I haven't given it much thought.
type authorBookSQL = s.authors.SQL | s.books.SQL;
type authorBookSelectable = s.authors.Selectable & { books: s.books.Selectable };
const
query = db.sql<authorBookSQL>`
SELECT ${"authors"}.*, jsonb_agg(${"books"}.*) AS ${"books"}
FROM ${"books"} JOIN ${"authors"}
ON ${"authors"}.${"id"} = ${"books"}.${"authorId"}
GROUP BY ${"authors"}.${"id"}`,
authorBooks: authorBookSelectable[] = await query.run(db.pool);
This exploits the fact that selecting all fields is, logically enough, permitted when grouping by primary key (https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-select.html#SQL-... and https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/158015/why-can-i-sel...)I'll update demo.ts and README shortly.
Your second case, if I recall this correctly (ActiveRecord made my SQL skills fade away), this plain JOIN would just return a row with the same book but a different author. `to_jsonb(authors.*)` is just operating on a single row. But what you want is possible (aggregating rows into a JSON object) by using `jsonb_agg`. Whether the lib supports inferring the correct typings for that is another question though.
> Just worried about forcing colleagues having to learn SQL instead of using a fancy wrapper.
My current team is pretty junior, and I don't see any problem with this. Simple SQL queries are really easy to learn, and complex queries are harder to understand with ORMs than in raw SQL.
Moreover, knowing SQL is a useful, marketable skill that will stay relevant for many years to come. If there's some resistance, I can easily convince the team that going this route will benefit them personally.
Back to the README, there are two questions I'd like to see addressed:
1. Whether `Selectable[]` can be used to query for a subset of fields and how.
2. In the `to_jsonb(authors)` example, what would you get back in the `author` field if there were multiple authors with the same `author.id` value? An array of `author.Selectable` objects? This part is awesome but brittle, isn't it?
I would love to see this move forward! I will definitely play with it and consider it for my next project.