SQLAlchemy: Getting a single object from joining multiple tables

Question

DB - SQLAlchemy setting

Consider a classic setting of two tables - user and api_key, represented by SQLAlchemy objects as:

Answer 1

Instead of querying objects, query for list of fields instead, in which case SQLAlchemy returns instances of KeyedTuple, which offers KeyedTuple._asdict() method you can use to return arbitrary dictionary:

def my_function(user_id):
    row =  database.db_session.query(User.name, ApiKey.api_key)\
        .join(ApiKey, User.vioozer_api_key==ApiKey.api_key)\
        .filter(User.user_id==user_id).first()
    return row._asdict()

my_data = my_function('user_00000000000000000000000000000000')

But for your particular query, you do not need even to join on ApiKey as the api_key field is present on the User table:

row = database.db_session.query(User.name, User.api_key)\
    .filter(User.user_id==user_id).first()