Query

Retrieving a single object

GORM provides First, Take, Last methods to retrieve a single object from the database, it adds LIMIT 1 condition when querying the database, and it will return the error ErrRecordNotFound if no record is found.

Generics API

ctx := context.Background()

// Get the first record ordered by primary key
user, err := gorm.G[User](db).First(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Get one record, no specified order
user, err := gorm.G[User](db).Take(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 1;

// Get last record, ordered by primary key desc
user, err := gorm.G[User](db).Last(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1;

// check error ErrRecordNotFound
errors.Is(err, gorm.ErrRecordNotFound)

Traditional API

// Get the first record ordered by primary key
db.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Get one record, no specified order
db.Take(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 1;

// Get last record, ordered by primary key desc
db.Last(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1;

result := db.First(&user)
result.RowsAffected // returns count of records found
result.Error        // returns error or nil

// check error ErrRecordNotFound
errors.Is(result.Error, gorm.ErrRecordNotFound)

If you want to avoid the ErrRecordNotFound error, you could use Find like db.Limit(1).Find(&user), the Find method accepts both struct and slice data

Using Find without a limit for single object db.Find(&user) will query the full table and return only the first object which is non-deterministic and not performant

The First and Last methods will find the first and last record (respectively) as ordered by primary key. They only work when a pointer to the destination struct is passed to the methods as argument or when the model is specified using db.Model(). Additionally, if no primary key is defined for relevant model, then the model will be ordered by the first field. For example:

var user User
var users []User

// works because destination struct is passed in
db.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

// works because model is specified using `db.Model()`
result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Model(&User{}).First(&result)
// SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

// doesn't work
result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Table("users").First(&result)

// works with Take
result := map[string]interface{}{}
db.Table("users").Take(&result)

// First and Last still add primary key ordering for the current table when
// using Table with aliases, joins, or custom projections.
type Result struct {
  ID   int
  Name string
}
var joinResult Result
db.Table("user_languages ul").
  Select("l.id, l.name").
  Joins("JOIN languages l ON l.code = ul.language_code").
  Order("l.name DESC").
  First(&joinResult)
// SELECT l.id, l.name FROM user_languages ul JOIN languages l ON l.code = ul.language_code ORDER BY l.name DESC, `ul`.`id` LIMIT 1

// Use Take when you provide the ordering yourself.
db.Table("user_languages ul").
  Select("l.id, l.name").
  Joins("JOIN languages l ON l.code = ul.language_code").
  Order("l.name DESC").
  Take(&joinResult)
// SELECT l.id, l.name FROM user_languages ul JOIN languages l ON l.code = ul.language_code ORDER BY l.name DESC LIMIT 1

// no primary key defined, results will be ordered by first field (i.e., `Code`)
type Language struct {
  Code string
  Name string
}
db.First(&Language{})
// SELECT * FROM `languages` ORDER BY `languages`.`code` LIMIT 1

Retrieving objects with primary key

Objects can be retrieved using primary key by using Inline Conditions if the primary key is a number. When working with strings, extra care needs to be taken to avoid SQL Injection; check out Security section for details.

Generics API

ctx := context.Background()

// Using numeric primary key
user, err := gorm.G[User](db).Where("id = ?", 10).First(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

// Using string primary key
user, err := gorm.G[User](db).Where("id = ?", "10").First(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

// Using multiple primary keys
users, err := gorm.G[User](db).Where("id IN ?", []int{1,2,3}).Find(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (1,2,3);

// If the primary key is a string (for example, like a uuid)
user, err := gorm.G[User](db).Where("id = ?", "1b74413f-f3b8-409f-ac47-e8c062e3472a").First(ctx)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = "1b74413f-f3b8-409f-ac47-e8c062e3472a";

Traditional API

db.First(&user, 10)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

db.First(&user, "10")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

db.Find(&users, []int{1,2,3})
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (1,2,3);

If the primary key is a string (for example, like a uuid), the query will be written as follows:

db.First(&user, "id = ?", "1b74413f-f3b8-409f-ac47-e8c062e3472a")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = "1b74413f-f3b8-409f-ac47-e8c062e3472a";

When the destination object has a primary value, the primary key will be used to build the condition, for example:

var user = User{ID: 10}
db.First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

var result User
db.Model(User{ID: 10}).First(&result)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10;

NOTE: If you use gorm’s specific field types like gorm.DeletedAt, it will run a different query for retrieving object/s.

type User struct {
  ID           string `gorm:"primarykey;size:16"`
  Name         string `gorm:"size:24"`
  DeletedAt    gorm.DeletedAt `gorm:"index"`
}

var user = User{ID: 15}
db.First(&user)
//  SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `users`.`id` = '15' AND `users`.`deleted_at` IS NULL ORDER BY `users`.`id` LIMIT 1

Retrieving all objects

// Get all records
result := db.Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users;

result.RowsAffected // returns found records count, equals `len(users)`
result.Error        // returns error

Conditions

String Conditions

// Get first matched record
db.Where("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Get all matched records
db.Where("name <> ?", "jinzhu").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name <> 'jinzhu';

// IN
db.Where("name IN ?", []string{"jinzhu", "jinzhu 2"}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name IN ('jinzhu','jinzhu 2');

// LIKE
db.Where("name LIKE ?", "%jin%").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE '%jin%';

// AND
db.Where("name = ? AND age >= ?", "jinzhu", "22").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' AND age >= 22;

// Time
db.Where("updated_at > ?", lastWeek).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE updated_at > '2000-01-01 00:00:00';

// BETWEEN
db.Where("created_at BETWEEN ? AND ?", lastWeek, today).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE created_at BETWEEN '2000-01-01 00:00:00' AND '2000-01-08 00:00:00';

If the object’s primary key has been set, then condition query wouldn’t cover the value of primary key but use it as a ‘and’ condition. For example:

var user = User{ID: 10}
db.Where("id = ?", 20).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 10 and id = 20 ORDER BY id ASC LIMIT 1

This query would give record not found Error. So set the primary key attribute such as id to nil before you want to use the variable such as user to get new value from database.

Struct & Map Conditions

// Struct
db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu", Age: 20}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 20 ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Map
db.Where(map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu", "age": 20}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 20;

// Slice of primary keys
db.Where([]int64{20, 21, 22}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (20, 21, 22);

NOTE When querying with struct, GORM will only query with non-zero fields, that means if your field’s value is 0, '', false or other zero values, it won’t be used to build query conditions, for example:

db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu", Age: 0}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu";

To include zero values in the query conditions, you can use a map, which will include all key-values as query conditions, for example:

db.Where(map[string]interface{}{"Name": "jinzhu", "Age": 0}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 0;

For more details, see Specify Struct search fields.

Specify Struct search fields

When searching with struct, you can specify which particular values from the struct to use in the query conditions by passing in the relevant field name or the dbname to Where(), for example:

db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu"}, "name", "Age").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu" AND age = 0;

db.Where(&User{Name: "jinzhu"}, "Age").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 0;

Inline Condition

Query conditions can be inlined into methods like First and Find in a similar way to Where.

// Get by primary key if it were a non-integer type
db.First(&user, "id = ?", "string_primary_key")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 'string_primary_key';

// Plain SQL
db.Find(&user, "name = ?", "jinzhu")
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = "jinzhu";

db.Find(&users, "name <> ? AND age > ?", "jinzhu", 20)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name <> "jinzhu" AND age > 20;

// Struct
db.Find(&users, User{Age: 20})
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 20;

// Map
db.Find(&users, map[string]interface{}{"age": 20})
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE age = 20;

Not Conditions

Build NOT conditions, works similar to Where

db.Not("name = ?", "jinzhu").First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE NOT name = "jinzhu" ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Not In
db.Not(map[string]interface{}{"name": []string{"jinzhu", "jinzhu 2"}}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name NOT IN ("jinzhu", "jinzhu 2");

// Struct
db.Not(User{Name: "jinzhu", Age: 18}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name <> "jinzhu" AND age <> 18 ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

// Not In slice of primary keys
db.Not([]int64{1,2,3}).First(&user)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE id NOT IN (1,2,3) ORDER BY id LIMIT 1;

Or Conditions

db.Where("role = ?", "admin").Or("role = ?", "super_admin").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE role = 'admin' OR role = 'super_admin';

// Struct
db.Where("name = 'jinzhu'").Or(User{Name: "jinzhu 2", Age: 18}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' OR (name = 'jinzhu 2' AND age = 18);

// Map
db.Where("name = 'jinzhu'").Or(map[string]interface{}{"name": "jinzhu 2", "age": 18}).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'jinzhu' OR (name = 'jinzhu 2' AND age = 18);

For more complicated SQL queries. please also refer to Group Conditions in Advanced Query.

Selecting Specific Fields

Select allows you to specify the fields that you want to retrieve from database. Otherwise, GORM will select all fields by default.

db.Select("name", "age").Find(&users)
// SELECT name, age FROM users;

db.Select([]string{"name", "age"}).Find(&users)
// SELECT name, age FROM users;

db.Table("users").Select("COALESCE(age,?)", 42).Rows()
// SELECT COALESCE(age,'42') FROM users;

Also check out Smart Select Fields

Order

Specify order when retrieving records from the database

db.Order("age desc, name").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY age desc, name;

// Multiple orders
db.Order("age desc").Order("name").Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY age desc, name;

db.Clauses(clause.OrderBy{
  Expression: clause.Expr{SQL: "FIELD(id,?)", Vars: []interface{}{[]int{1, 2, 3}}, WithoutParentheses: true},
}).Find(&User{})
// SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY FIELD(id,1,2,3)

Limit & Offset

Limit specify the max number of records to retrieve
Offset specify the number of records to skip before starting to return the records

db.Limit(3).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 3;

// Cancel limit condition with -1
db.Limit(10).Find(&users1).Limit(-1).Find(&users2)
// SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10; (users1)
// SELECT * FROM users; (users2)

db.Offset(3).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users OFFSET 3;

db.Limit(10).Offset(5).Find(&users)
// SELECT * FROM users OFFSET 5 LIMIT 10;

// Cancel offset condition with -1
db.Offset(10).Find(&users1).Offset(-1).Find(&users2)
// SELECT * FROM users OFFSET 10; (users1)
// SELECT * FROM users; (users2)

Refer to Pagination for details on how to make a paginator

Group By & Having

type result struct {
  Date  time.Time
  Total int
}

db.Model(&User{}).Select("name, sum(age) as total").Where("name LIKE ?", "group%").Group("name").First(&result)
// SELECT name, sum(age) as total FROM `users` WHERE name LIKE "group%" GROUP BY `name` LIMIT 1


db.Model(&User{}).Select("name, sum(age) as total").Group("name").Having("name = ?", "group").Find(&result)
// SELECT name, sum(age) as total FROM `users` GROUP BY `name` HAVING name = "group"

rows, err := db.Table("orders").Select("date(created_at) as date, sum(amount) as total").Group("date(created_at)").Rows()
defer rows.Close()
for rows.Next() {
  ...
}

rows, err := db.Table("orders").Select("date(created_at) as date, sum(amount) as total").Group("date(created_at)").Having("sum(amount) > ?", 100).Rows()
defer rows.Close()
for rows.Next() {
  ...
}

type Result struct {
  Date  time.Time
  Total int64
}
db.Table("orders").Select("date(created_at) as date, sum(amount) as total").Group("date(created_at)").Having("sum(amount) > ?", 100).Scan(&results)

Distinct

Selecting distinct values from the model

db.Distinct("name", "age").Order("name, age desc").Find(&results)

Distinct works with Pluck and Count too

Joins

Generics API

The new GORM generics interface brings enhanced support for association queries (Joins), offering more flexible association methods, more expressive query capabilities, and a significantly simplified approach to building complex queries.

  • Joins: Easily specify different join types (e.g., InnerJoin, LeftJoin) and customize join conditions based on associations, making complex cross-table queries clearer and more intuitive.
// Load only users who have a company
users, err := gorm.G[User](db).Joins(clause.Has("Company"), nil).Find(ctx)

// Use Left Join with custom filter on joined table
user, err = gorm.G[User](db).Joins(clause.LeftJoin.Association("Company"), func(db gorm.JoinBuilder, joinTable clause.Table, curTable clause.Table) error {
    db.Where(map[string]any{"name": company.Name})
    return nil
}).Where(map[string]any{"name": user.Name}).First(ctx)

// Join using a subquery
users, err = gorm.G[User](db).Joins(clause.LeftJoin.AssociationFrom("Company", gorm.G[Company](DB).Select("Name")).As("t"),
    func(db gorm.JoinBuilder, joinTable clause.Table, curTable clause.Table) error {
        db.Where("?.name = ?", joinTable, u.Company.Name)
        return nil
    },
).Find(ctx)

Traditional API

Specify Joins conditions

type result struct {
  Name  string
  Email string
}

db.Model(&User{}).Select("users.name, emails.email").Joins("left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id").Scan(&result{})
// SELECT users.name, emails.email FROM `users` left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id

rows, err := db.Table("users").Select("users.name, emails.email").Joins("left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id").Rows()
for rows.Next() {
  ...
}

db.Table("users").Select("users.name, emails.email").Joins("left join emails on emails.user_id = users.id").Scan(&results)

// multiple joins with parameter
db.Joins("JOIN emails ON emails.user_id = users.id AND emails.email = ?", "jinzhu@example.org").Joins("JOIN credit_cards ON credit_cards.user_id = users.id").Where("credit_cards.number = ?", "411111111111").Find(&user)

Joins Preloading

You can use Joins eager loading associations with a single SQL, for example:

db.Joins("Company").Find(&users)
// SELECT `users`.`id`,`users`.`name`,`users`.`age`,`Company`.`id` AS `Company__id`,`Company`.`name` AS `Company__name` FROM `users` LEFT JOIN `companies` AS `Company` ON `users`.`company_id` = `Company`.`id`;

// inner join
db.InnerJoins("Company").Find(&users)
// SELECT `users`.`id`,`users`.`name`,`users`.`age`,`Company`.`id` AS `Company__id`,`Company`.`name` AS `Company__name` FROM `users` INNER JOIN `companies` AS `Company` ON `users`.`company_id` = `Company`.`id`;

Join with conditions

db.Joins("Company", db.Where(&Company{Alive: true})).Find(&users)
// SELECT `users`.`id`,`users`.`name`,`users`.`age`,`Company`.`id` AS `Company__id`,`Company`.`name` AS `Company__name` FROM `users` LEFT JOIN `companies` AS `Company` ON `users`.`company_id` = `Company`.`id` AND `Company`.`alive` = true;

For more details, please refer to Preloading (Eager Loading).

Joins a Derived Table

You can also use Joins to join a derived table.

type User struct {
  Id  int
  Age int
}

type Order struct {
  UserId     int
  FinishedAt *time.Time
}

query := db.Table("order").Select("MAX(order.finished_at) as latest").Joins("left join user user on order.user_id = user.id").Where("user.age > ?", 18).Group("order.user_id")
db.Model(&Order{}).Joins("join (?) q on order.finished_at = q.latest", query).Scan(&results)
// SELECT `order`.`user_id`,`order`.`finished_at` FROM `order` join (SELECT MAX(order.finished_at) as latest FROM `order` left join user user on order.user_id = user.id WHERE user.age > 18 GROUP BY `order`.`user_id`) q on order.finished_at = q.latest

Scan

Scanning results into a struct works similarly to the way we use Find

type Result struct {
  Name string
  Age  int
}

var result Result
db.Table("users").Select("name", "age").Where("name = ?", "Antonio").Scan(&result)

// Raw SQL
db.Raw("SELECT name, age FROM users WHERE name = ?", "Antonio").Scan(&result)

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