Connecting to a Database

GORM officially supports databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server

MySQL

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/mysql"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

func main() {
  // refer https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql#dsn-data-source-name for details
  dsn := "user:pass@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/dbname?charset=utf8mb4&parseTime=True&loc=Local"
  db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})
}

NOTE:
To handle time.Time correctly, you need to include parseTime as a parameter. (more parameters)
To fully support UTF-8 encoding, you need to change charset=utf8 to charset=utf8mb4. See this article for a detailed explanation

MySQL Driver provides few advanced configurations can be used during initialization, for example:

db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.New(mysql.Config{
  DSN: "gorm:gorm@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/gorm?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local", // data source name
  DefaultStringSize: 256, // default size for string fields
  DisableDatetimePrecision: true, // disable datetime precision, which not supported before MySQL 5.6
  DontSupportRenameIndex: true, // drop & create when rename index, rename index not supported before MySQL 5.7, MariaDB
  DontSupportRenameColumn: true, // `change` when rename column, rename column not supported before MySQL 8, MariaDB
  SkipInitializeWithVersion: false, // auto configure based on currently MySQL version
}), &gorm.Config{})

Customize Driver

GORM allows customize the MySQL driver with the DriverName option, for example:

import (
  _ "example.com/my_mysql_driver"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

db, err := gorm.Open(mysql.New(mysql.Config{
  DriverName: "my_mysql_driver",
  DSN: "gorm:gorm@tcp(localhost:9910)/gorm?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local", // data source name, refer https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql#dsn-data-source-name
}), &gorm.Config{})

Existing database connection

GORM allows to initialize *gorm.DB with an existing database connection

import (
  "database/sql"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

sqlDB, err := sql.Open("mysql", "mydb_dsn")
gormDB, err := gorm.Open(mysql.New(mysql.Config{
  Conn: sqlDB,
}), &gorm.Config{})

PostgreSQL

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/postgres"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

dsn := "user=gorm password=gorm dbname=gorm port=9920 sslmode=disable TimeZone=Asia/Shanghai"
db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})

We are using pgx as postgres’s database/sql driver, it enables prepared statement cache by default, to disable it:

// https://github.com/go-gorm/postgres
db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{
  DSN: "user=gorm password=gorm dbname=gorm port=9920 sslmode=disable TimeZone=Asia/Shanghai",
  PreferSimpleProtocol: true, // disables implicit prepared statement usage
}), &gorm.Config{})

Customize Driver

GORM allows customize the PostgreSQL driver with the DriverName option, for example:

import (
  _ "github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/cloudsql-proxy/proxy/dialers/postgres"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

db, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{
  DriverName: "cloudsqlpostgres",
  DSN: "host=project:region:instance user=postgres dbname=postgres password=password sslmode=disable",
})

Existing database connection

GORM allows to initialize *gorm.DB with an existing database connection

import (
  "database/sql"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

sqlDB, err := sql.Open("postgres", "mydb_dsn")
gormDB, err := gorm.Open(postgres.New(postgres.Config{
  Conn: sqlDB,
}), &gorm.Config{})

SQLite

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlite"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

// github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{})

NOTE: You can also use file::memory:?cache=shared instead of a path to a file. This will tell SQLite to use a temporary database in system memory. (See SQLite docs for this)

SQL Server

import (
  "gorm.io/driver/sqlserver"
  "gorm.io/gorm"
)

// github.com/denisenkom/go-mssqldb
dsn := "sqlserver://gorm:LoremIpsum86@localhost:9930?database=gorm"
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlserver.Open(dsn), &gorm.Config{})

Connection Pool

GORM using database/sql to maintain connection pool

sqlDB, err := db.DB()

// SetMaxIdleConns sets the maximum number of connections in the idle connection pool.
sqlDB.SetMaxIdleConns(10)

// SetMaxOpenConns sets the maximum number of open connections to the database.
sqlDB.SetMaxOpenConns(100)

// SetConnMaxLifetime sets the maximum amount of time a connection may be reused.
sqlDB.SetConnMaxLifetime(time.Hour)

Refer Generic Interface for details

Unsupported Databases

Some databases may be compatible with the mysql or postgres dialect, in which case you could just use the dialect for those databases.

For others, you are encouraged to make a driver, pull request welcome!