Lift Cookbook

Chapter 7. Relational Database Persistence with Record and Squeryl

Squeryl is an object-relational mapping library. It converts Scala classes into tables, rows, and columns in a relational database, and provides a way to write SQL-like queries that are type-checked by the Scala compiler. The Lift Squeryl Record module integrates Squeryl with Record, meaning your Lift application can use Squeryl to store and fetch data while making use of the features of Record, such as data validation.

The code in this chapter can be found at https://github.com/LiftCookbook/cookbook_squeryl.

Configuring Squeryl and Record

Problem

You want to configure your Lift application to use Squeryl and Record.

Solution

Include the Squeryl-Record dependency in your build, and in Boot.scala, provide a database connection function to SquerylRecord.initWithSquerylSession.

For example, to configure Squeryl with PostgreSQL, modify build.sbt to add two dependencies, one for Squeryl-Record and one for the database driver:

libraryDependencies ++= {
  val liftVersion = "2.5"
  Seq(
    "net.liftweb" %% "lift-webkit" % liftVersion,
    "net.liftweb" %% "lift-squeryl-record" % liftVersion,
    "postgresql" % "postgresql" % "9.1-901.jdbc4"
    ...
    )
}

In Boot.scala, we define a connection and register it with Squeryl:

Class.forName("org.postgresql.Driver")

def connection = DriverManager.getConnection(
  "jdbc:postgresql://localhost/mydb",
  "username", "password")

SquerylRecord.initWithSquerylSession(
  Session.create(connection, new PostgreSqlAdapter)