Drizzle Team•14mo ago

Is it possible to use the "unaccent" extension with drizzle?

hello, I wanted to make an ilike comparison in my query for the letter %á%, but it does not match for %Á%, because afaik, they are regarded as two different letters by postgres. I asked chatgpt, who told me to use the "unaccent" extension to remove the accents before the comparison to get good results. Is this really the way to go? If yes, how could I integrate it with drizzle? I just want to query usernames without worrying about casing :DD

15 Replies

itsyoboieltrOP•14mo ago

managed to make it work on my own, I do not know if this is the recommended way, but it works atleast :DD 1. step: initialize the extension if it's not available when your app starts.

await db.execute(sql`CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS unaccent;`);

await db.execute(sql`CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS unaccent;`);

2. step: replace where clause in your query with custom sql using the unaccent function for the comparison.

db.select()
  .from(user)
  .where(sql`unaccent(${user.name}) ilike unaccent(${query.name})`);

db.select()
  .from(user)
  .where(sql`unaccent(${user.name}) ilike unaccent(${query.name})`);

3. step: have fun with your truly case-insensitive query results

DYELbrah•14mo ago

Lol pretty genius I like it

Angelelz•14mo ago

Does postgres don't have collation? That's the mysql way

itsyoboieltrOP•14mo ago

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/collation.html

PostgreSQL Documentation

24.2. Collation Support

24.2. Collation Support # 24.2.1. Concepts 24.2.2. Managing Collations 24.2.3. ICU Custom Collations The collation feature allows specifying the sort order …

itsyoboieltrOP•14mo ago

However, I am not sure how would you use this for the purpose mentioned?

Angelelz•14mo ago

You can tell the database how to compare accented and capitalized letters. You can make a = A and a = Ä return true depending on the collation. That way you don't need to use lower at all

Angelelz•14mo ago

See this section: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/collation.html#ICU-CUSTOM-COLLATIONS

PostgreSQL Documentation

24.2. Collation Support

24.2. Collation Support # 24.2.1. Concepts 24.2.2. Managing Collations 24.2.3. ICU Custom Collations The collation feature allows specifying the sort order …

Angelelz•14mo ago

Also, I believe you can use ILIKE clause to compare case insensitively

itsyoboieltrOP•14mo ago

this depends on: https://github.com/drizzle-team/drizzle-orm/issues/638

GitHub

[FEATURE]: Support setting collation of columns · Issue #638 · driz...

Describe want to want Another fun Postgres feature! Let's say you're using fractional indexing and want to sort strings in a particular way that has nothing to do with their ordering in Eng...

itsyoboieltrOP•14mo ago

until then, probably this solution is the most convenient dev exp

Angelelz•14mo ago

I would use collation, you can make it work with custom types

Angelelz•14mo ago

https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/custom-types

Common way of defining custom types - DrizzleORM

Drizzle ORM | %s

Angelelz•14mo ago

As soon as drizzle kit is released as OSS I would like to submit so many PRs, this might be one

itsyoboieltrOP•14mo ago

How would you implement it? I am not sure how would I go about this

Angelelz•14mo ago

This is how I'm using custom types to create a generated column in one of my projects:

const customGeneratedText = (name: string, ...columns: [string, ...string[]]) =>
  customType<{ data: undefined; driverData: undefined }>({
    dataType() {
      return `text as (concat_ws(" ", ${columns.join(", ")})) invisible`;
    }
  })(name);

const customGeneratedText = (name: string, ...columns: [string, ...string[]]) =>
  customType<{ data: undefined; driverData: undefined }>({
    dataType() {
      return `text as (concat_ws(" ", ${columns.join(", ")})) invisible`;
    }
  })(name);

You can use the dataType() method to return the sql you need to create your column In your case you'll replace as (concat_ws..... with the collation you need

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Is it possible to use the "unaccent" extension with drizzle?