Build a Go App with CockroachDB and GORM

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Warning:

As of November 12, 2021, CockroachDB v20.1 is no longer supported. For more details, refer to the Release Support Policy.

This tutorial shows you how build a simple Go application with CockroachDB and the GORM ORM.

Tip:

For another use of GORM with CockroachDB, see our examples-orms repository.

Before you begin

Install CockroachDB.
Start up a secure or insecure local cluster.
Choose the instructions that correspond to whether your cluster is secure or insecure:

Step 1. Install the GORM ORM

To install GORM, run the following commands:

$ go get -u github.com/lib/pq # dependency

$ go get -u github.com/jinzhu/gorm

Step 2. Create the `maxroach` user and `bank` database

Start the built-in SQL shell:

$ cockroach sql --certs-dir=certs

In the SQL shell, issue the following statements to create the maxroach user and bank database:

> CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS maxroach;

> CREATE DATABASE bank;

Give the maxroach user the necessary permissions:

> GRANT ALL ON DATABASE bank TO maxroach;

Exit the SQL shell:

> \q

Step 3. Generate a certificate for the `maxroach` user

Create a certificate and key for the maxroach user by running the following command. The code samples will run as this user.

$ cockroach cert create-client maxroach --certs-dir=certs --ca-key=my-safe-directory/ca.key

Step 4. Run the Go code

The following code uses the GORM ORM to map Go-specific objects to SQL operations. Specifically:

db.AutoMigrate(&Account{}) creates an accounts table based on the Account model.
db.Create(&Account{}) inserts rows into the table.
db.Find(&accounts) selects from the table so that balances can be printed.
The funds transfer occurs in transferFunds(). To ensure that we handle retry errors, we write an application-level retry loop that, in case of error, sleeps before trying the funds transfer again. If it encounters another error, it sleeps again for a longer interval, implementing exponential backoff.

Copy the code or download it directly.

Tip:

To clone a version of the code below that connects to insecure clusters, run the command below. Note that you will need to edit the connection string to use the certificates that you generated when you set up your secure cluster.

git clone https://github.com/cockroachlabs/hello-world-go-gorm

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "math"
    "math/rand"
    "time"

    // Import GORM-related packages.
    "github.com/jinzhu/gorm"
    _ "github.com/jinzhu/gorm/dialects/postgres"

    // Necessary in order to check for transaction retry error codes.
    "github.com/lib/pq"
)

// Account is our model, which corresponds to the "accounts" database
// table.
type Account struct {
    ID      int `gorm:"primary_key"`
    Balance int
}

// Functions of type `txnFunc` are passed as arguments to our
// `runTransaction` wrapper that handles transaction retries for us
// (see implementation below).
type txnFunc func(*gorm.DB) error

// This function is used for testing the transaction retry loop.  It
// can be deleted from production code.
var forceRetryLoop txnFunc = func(db *gorm.DB) error {

    // The first statement in a transaction can be retried transparently
    // on the server, so we need to add a placeholder statement so that our
    // force_retry statement isn't the first one.
    if err := db.Exec("SELECT now()").Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    // Used to force a transaction retry.
    if err := db.Exec("SELECT crdb_internal.force_retry('1s'::INTERVAL)").Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

func transferFunds(db *gorm.DB, fromID int, toID int, amount int) error {
    var fromAccount Account
    var toAccount Account

    db.First(&fromAccount, fromID)
    db.First(&toAccount, toID)

    if fromAccount.Balance < amount {
        return fmt.Errorf("account %d balance %d is lower than transfer amount %d", fromAccount.ID, fromAccount.Balance, amount)
    }

    fromAccount.Balance -= amount
    toAccount.Balance += amount

    if err := db.Save(&fromAccount).Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    if err := db.Save(&toAccount).Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

func main() {
    // Connect to the "bank" database as the "maxroach" user.
    const addr = "postgresql://maxroach@localhost:26257/bank?ssl=true&sslmode=require&sslrootcert=certs/ca.crt&sslkey=certs/client.maxroach.key&sslcert=certs/client.maxroach.crt"
    db, err := gorm.Open("postgres", addr)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer db.Close()

    // Set to `true` and GORM will print out all DB queries.
    db.LogMode(false)

    // Automatically create the "accounts" table based on the Account
    // model.
    db.AutoMigrate(&Account{})

    // Insert two rows into the "accounts" table.
    var fromID = 1
    var toID = 2
    db.Create(&Account{ID: fromID, Balance: 1000})
    db.Create(&Account{ID: toID, Balance: 250})

    // The sequence of steps in this section is:
    // 1. Print account balances.
    // 2. Set up some Accounts and transfer funds between them inside
    // a transaction.
    // 3. Print account balances again to verify the transfer occurred.

    // Print balances before transfer.
    printBalances(db)

    // The amount to be transferred between the accounts.
    var amount = 100

    // Transfer funds between accounts.  To handle potential
    // transaction retry errors, we wrap the call to `transferFunds`
    // in `runTransaction`, a wrapper which implements a retry loop
    // with exponential backoff around our access to the database (see
    // the implementation for details).
    if err := runTransaction(db,
        func(*gorm.DB) error {
            return transferFunds(db, fromID, toID, amount)
        },
    ); err != nil {
        // If the error is returned, it's either:
        //   1. Not a transaction retry error, i.e., some other kind
        //   of database error that you should handle here.
        //   2. A transaction retry error that has occurred more than
        //   N times (defined by the `maxRetries` variable inside
        //   `runTransaction`), in which case you will need to figure
        //   out why your database access is resulting in so much
        //   contention (see 'Understanding and avoiding transaction
        //   contention':
        //   https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/performance-best-practices-overview.html#understanding-and-avoiding-transaction-contention)
        fmt.Println(err)
    }

    // Print balances after transfer to ensure that it worked.
    printBalances(db)

    // Delete accounts so we can start fresh when we want to run this
    // program again.
    deleteAccounts(db)
}

// Wrapper for a transaction.  This automatically re-calls `fn` with
// the open transaction as an argument as long as the database server
// asks for the transaction to be retried.
func runTransaction(db *gorm.DB, fn txnFunc) error {
    var maxRetries = 3
    for retries := 0; retries <= maxRetries; retries++ {
        if retries == maxRetries {
            return fmt.Errorf("hit max of %d retries, aborting", retries)
        }
        txn := db.Begin()
        if err := fn(txn); err != nil {
            // We need to cast GORM's db.Error to *pq.Error so we can
            // detect the Postgres transaction retry error code and
            // handle retries appropriately.
            pqErr := err.(*pq.Error)
            if pqErr.Code == "40001" {
                // Since this is a transaction retry error, we
                // ROLLBACK the transaction and sleep a little before
                // trying again.  Each time through the loop we sleep
                // for a little longer than the last time
                // (A.K.A. exponential backoff).
                txn.Rollback()
                var sleepMs = math.Pow(2, float64(retries)) * 100 * (rand.Float64() + 0.5)
                fmt.Printf("Hit 40001 transaction retry error, sleeping %s milliseconds\n", sleepMs)
                time.Sleep(time.Millisecond * time.Duration(sleepMs))
            } else {
                // If it's not a retry error, it's some other sort of
                // DB interaction error that needs to be handled by
                // the caller.
                return err
            }
        } else {
            // All went well, so we try to commit and break out of the
            // retry loop if possible.
            if err := txn.Commit().Error; err != nil {
                pqErr := err.(*pq.Error)
                if pqErr.Code == "40001" {
                    // However, our attempt to COMMIT could also
                    // result in a retry error, in which case we
                    // continue back through the loop and try again.
                    continue
                } else {
                    // If it's not a retry error, it's some other sort
                    // of DB interaction error that needs to be
                    // handled by the caller.
                    return err
                }
            }
            break
        }
    }
    return nil
}

func printBalances(db *gorm.DB) {
    var accounts []Account
    db.Find(&accounts)
    fmt.Printf("Balance at '%s':\n", time.Now())
    for _, account := range accounts {
        fmt.Printf("%d %d\n", account.ID, account.Balance)
    }
}

func deleteAccounts(db *gorm.DB) error {
    // Used to tear down the accounts table so we can re-run this
    // program.
    err := db.Exec("DELETE from accounts where ID > 0").Error
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

Then run the code:

$ go run gorm-sample.go

The output should show the account balances before and after the funds transfer:

Balance at '2019-08-06 13:37:19.311423 -0400 EDT m=+0.034072606':
1 1000
2 250
Balance at '2019-08-06 13:37:19.325654 -0400 EDT m=+0.048303286':
1 900
2 350

Step 2. Create the `maxroach` user and `bank` database

Start the built-in SQL shell:

$ cockroach sql --insecure

In the SQL shell, issue the following statements to create the maxroach user and bank database:

> CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS maxroach;

> CREATE DATABASE bank;

Give the maxroach user the necessary permissions:

> GRANT ALL ON DATABASE bank TO maxroach;

Exit the SQL shell:

> \q

Step 3. Run the Go code

The following code uses the GORM ORM to map Go-specific objects to SQL operations. Specifically:

db.AutoMigrate(&Account{}) creates an accounts table based on the Account model.
db.Create(&Account{}) inserts rows into the table.
db.Find(&accounts) selects from the table so that balances can be printed.
The funds transfer occurs in transferFunds(). To ensure that we handle retry errors, we write an application-level retry loop that, in case of error, sleeps before trying the funds transfer again. If it encounters another error, it sleeps again for a longer interval, implementing exponential backoff.

To get the code below, clone the hello-world-go-gorm repo to your machine:

git clone https://github.com/cockroachlabs/hello-world-go-gorm

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "math"
    "math/rand"
    "time"

    // Import GORM-related packages.
    "github.com/jinzhu/gorm"
    _ "github.com/jinzhu/gorm/dialects/postgres"

    // Necessary in order to check for transaction retry error codes.
    "github.com/lib/pq"
)

// Account is our model, which corresponds to the "accounts" database
// table.
type Account struct {
    ID      int `gorm:"primary_key"`
    Balance int
}

// Functions of type `txnFunc` are passed as arguments to our
// `runTransaction` wrapper that handles transaction retries for us
// (see implementation below).
type txnFunc func(*gorm.DB) error

// This function is used for testing the transaction retry loop.  It
// can be deleted from production code.
var forceRetryLoop txnFunc = func(db *gorm.DB) error {

    // The first statement in a transaction can be retried transparently
    // on the server, so we need to add a placeholder statement so that our
    // force_retry statement isn't the first one.
    if err := db.Exec("SELECT now()").Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    // Used to force a transaction retry.
    if err := db.Exec("SELECT crdb_internal.force_retry('1s'::INTERVAL)").Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

func transferFunds(db *gorm.DB, fromID int, toID int, amount int) error {
    var fromAccount Account
    var toAccount Account

    db.First(&fromAccount, fromID)
    db.First(&toAccount, toID)

    if fromAccount.Balance < amount {
        return fmt.Errorf("account %d balance %d is lower than transfer amount %d", fromAccount.ID, fromAccount.Balance, amount)
    }

    fromAccount.Balance -= amount
    toAccount.Balance += amount

    if err := db.Save(&fromAccount).Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    if err := db.Save(&toAccount).Error; err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

func main() {
    // Connect to the "bank" database as the "maxroach" user.
    const addr = "postgresql://maxroach@localhost:26257/bank?sslmode=disable"
    db, err := gorm.Open("postgres", addr)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer db.Close()

    // Set to `true` and GORM will print out all DB queries.
    db.LogMode(false)

    // Automatically create the "accounts" table based on the Account
    // model.
    db.AutoMigrate(&Account{})

    // Insert two rows into the "accounts" table.
    var fromID = 1
    var toID = 2
    db.Create(&Account{ID: fromID, Balance: 1000})
    db.Create(&Account{ID: toID, Balance: 250})

    // The sequence of steps in this section is:
    // 1. Print account balances.
    // 2. Set up some Accounts and transfer funds between them inside
    // a transaction.
    // 3. Print account balances again to verify the transfer occurred.

    // Print balances before transfer.
    printBalances(db)

    // The amount to be transferred between the accounts.
    var amount = 100

    // Transfer funds between accounts.  To handle potential
    // transaction retry errors, we wrap the call to `transferFunds`
    // in `runTransaction`, a wrapper which implements a retry loop
    // with exponential backoff around our access to the database (see
    // the implementation for details).
    if err := runTransaction(db,
        func(*gorm.DB) error {
            return transferFunds(db, fromID, toID, amount)
        },
    ); err != nil {
        // If the error is returned, it's either:
        //   1. Not a transaction retry error, i.e., some other kind
        //   of database error that you should handle here.
        //   2. A transaction retry error that has occurred more than
        //   N times (defined by the `maxRetries` variable inside
        //   `runTransaction`), in which case you will need to figure
        //   out why your database access is resulting in so much
        //   contention (see 'Understanding and avoiding transaction
        //   contention':
        //   https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/performance-best-practices-overview.html#understanding-and-avoiding-transaction-contention)
        fmt.Println(err)
    }

    // Print balances after transfer to ensure that it worked.
    printBalances(db)

    // Delete accounts so we can start fresh when we want to run this
    // program again.
    deleteAccounts(db)
}

// Wrapper for a transaction.  This automatically re-calls `fn` with
// the open transaction as an argument as long as the database server
// asks for the transaction to be retried.
func runTransaction(db *gorm.DB, fn txnFunc) error {
    var maxRetries = 3
    for retries := 0; retries <= maxRetries; retries++ {
        if retries == maxRetries {
            return fmt.Errorf("hit max of %d retries, aborting", retries)
        }
        txn := db.Begin()
        if err := fn(txn); err != nil {
            // We need to cast GORM's db.Error to *pq.Error so we can
            // detect the Postgres transaction retry error code and
            // handle retries appropriately.
            pqErr := err.(*pq.Error)
            if pqErr.Code == "40001" {
                // Since this is a transaction retry error, we
                // ROLLBACK the transaction and sleep a little before
                // trying again.  Each time through the loop we sleep
                // for a little longer than the last time
                // (A.K.A. exponential backoff).
                txn.Rollback()
                var sleepMs = math.Pow(2, float64(retries)) * 100 * (rand.Float64() + 0.5)
                fmt.Printf("Hit 40001 transaction retry error, sleeping %s milliseconds\n", sleepMs)
                time.Sleep(time.Millisecond * time.Duration(sleepMs))
            } else {
                // If it's not a retry error, it's some other sort of
                // DB interaction error that needs to be handled by
                // the caller.
                return err
            }
        } else {
            // All went well, so we try to commit and break out of the
            // retry loop if possible.
            if err := txn.Commit().Error; err != nil {
                pqErr := err.(*pq.Error)
                if pqErr.Code == "40001" {
                    // However, our attempt to COMMIT could also
                    // result in a retry error, in which case we
                    // continue back through the loop and try again.
                    continue
                } else {
                    // If it's not a retry error, it's some other sort
                    // of DB interaction error that needs to be
                    // handled by the caller.
                    return err
                }
            }
            break
        }
    }
    return nil
}

func printBalances(db *gorm.DB) {
    var accounts []Account
    db.Find(&accounts)
    fmt.Printf("Balance at '%s':\n", time.Now())
    for _, account := range accounts {
        fmt.Printf("%d %d\n", account.ID, account.Balance)
    }
}

func deleteAccounts(db *gorm.DB) error {
    // Used to tear down the accounts table so we can re-run this
    // program.
    err := db.Exec("DELETE from accounts where ID > 0").Error
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

Change to the directory where you cloned the repo and run the code:

$ go run main.go

The output should show the account balances before and after the funds transfer:

Balance at '2019-07-15 13:34:22.536363 -0400 EDT m=+0.019918599':
1 1000
2 250
Balance at '2019-07-15 13:34:22.540037 -0400 EDT m=+0.023592845':
1 900
2 350

What's next?

Read more about using the GORM ORM, or check out a more realistic implementation of GORM with CockroachDB in our examples-orms repository.

You might also be interested in the following pages:

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Cockroach
University

Docs Hub

Build a Go App with CockroachDB and GORM

Before you begin

Step 1. Install the GORM ORM

Step 2. Create the `maxroach` user and `bank` database

Step 3. Generate a certificate for the `maxroach` user

Step 4. Run the Go code

Step 2. Create the `maxroach` user and `bank` database

Step 3. Run the Go code

What's next?

Cockroach University

Docs Hub

Cockroach University

Docs Hub

Build a Go App with CockroachDB and GORM

Before you begin

Step 1. Install the GORM ORM

Step 2. Create the maxroach user and bank database

Step 3. Generate a certificate for the maxroach user

Step 4. Run the Go code

Step 2. Create the maxroach user and bank database

Step 3. Run the Go code

What's next?

Cockroach
University

Cockroach
University

Step 2. Create the `maxroach` user and `bank` database

Step 3. Generate a certificate for the `maxroach` user

Step 2. Create the `maxroach` user and `bank` database