Norman is a scaffolder and migration manager for Norm ORM.

Norman provides a CLI tool to manage migrations and a normanpkg/prelude module that helps writing migrations.

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1. Install Norman with Nimble:

$ nimble install -y norman

2. Add Norman to your .nimble file:

requires "norman >= 2.1.0"

If you are using Nim 2.0 or later, you might need to enable deepcopy support in your project's nim.cfg or config.nims file:

deepcopy:on

1. Create a blank Nimble package with nimble init. Choose package type "binary".
2. Run norman init inside the package directory:

$ norman init
Creating folders and files:
    migrations
    migrations/config.nims
    src/foo/models
    src/foo/db_backend.nim
    .env

3. Add your first model with norman model:

$ norman model -n user
Creating blank model:
    src/foo/models/user.nim

4. Open the model in your favorite editor and add fields to it:

import norm/model


type
  User* = ref object of Model

func newUser*: User =
  User()

⏬⏬⏬

import norm/model


type
  User* = ref object of Model
    email*: string

func newUser*(email: string): User =
  User(email: email)

func newUser*: User =
  newUser("")

5. Generate a migration for the new model with norman generate:

$ norman generate -i user
Creating blank migration:
    migrations/1595536838_init_user/migration.nim
Copying models:
    src/foo/models

6. Apply migrations with norman migrate:

$ norman migrate
Applying migrations:
    migrations/1595536838_init_user

This creates the table for your new model.

7. Generate a migration with norman generate:

$ norman generate -m "seed users"
Creating blank migration:
    migrations/1595537495_seed_users/migration.nim
Copying models:
    src/foo/models

8. Edit the migration to actually insert rows into the DB:

include normanpkg/prelude

import foo/db_backend


migrate:
  withDb:
    db.transaction:
      let qry = """ALTER TABLE "Table" ADD COLUMN column TYPE NOT NULL DEFAULT value"""

      debug qry
      db.exec sql qry

undo:
  withDb:
    db.transaction:
      let qry = """ALTER TABLE "Table" DROP COLUMN column"""

      debug qry
      db.exec sql qry

⏬⏬⏬

include normanpkg/prelude

import strutils
import sugar

import foo/db_backend
import models/user


migrate:
  withDb:
    db.transaction:
      for i in 1..10:
        discard newUser("user$#@example.com" % $i).dup:
          db.insert

undo:
  withDb:
    db.transaction:
      discard @[newUser()].dup:
        db.select("1")
        db.delete

9. Apply the new migration:

$ norman migrate
Applying migrations:
    migrations/1595537495_seed_users

10. To undo the last applied migration, run norman undo:

$ norman undo

Undoing migration:
    migrations/1595537495_seed_users

If you see this error, it is likely that you are using nimble setup (project isolation) but haven't re-run it after adding norman to your dependencies.

Solution: Run nimble setup again in your project root.

$ nimble setup

This updates nimble.paths to include norman, allowing migrations to find it.

If the error persists or you need to manually configure paths, ensure migrations/config.nims includes nimble.paths correctly:

when fileExists("$projectDir/../../nimble.paths"):
  include "$projectDir/../../nimble.paths"

And ensure the path to your source is correct:

switch("path", "$projectDir/../../src")

If you are using Nim 2.0 or newer, you must enable deepcopy for migrations to work. Add this line to your migrations/config.nims:

switch("deepcopy", "on")