Writing Data (TypeScript)

Overview

The Prisma client is generated from your datamodel. Its API exposes CRUD and other operations for the models defined in the datamodel.

For this page, we'll assume your Prisma project is based on the following datamodel:

type Post {
  id: ID! @id
  createdAt: DateTime! @createdAt
  updatedAt: DateTime! @updatedAt
  title: String!
  published: Boolean! @default(value: false)
  author: User
  comments: [Comment!]!
}

type User {
  id: ID! @id
  name: String
  email: String! @unique
  role: Role! @default(value: USER)
  posts: [Post!]!
  comments: [Comment!]!
}

type Comment {
  id: ID! @id
  createdAt: DateTime! @createdAt
  text: String!
  post: Post!
  writtenBy: User!
}

enum Role {
  USER
  ADMIN
}

For each model type in your datamodel, six methods for writing data are generated. For example, for the User model the following operations are available:

• createUser: Creates a new User record in the database.
• updateUser: Updates an existing User record in the database.
• deleteUser: Deletes an existing User record from the database.
• upsertUser: Updates an existing or create a new User record in the database.
• updateManyUsers: Updates many existing User records in the database at once.
• deleteManyUsers: Deletes many existing User records from the database at once.

Creating records

When creating new records in the database, the create-method takes one input object which wraps all the scalar fields of the record to be created. It also provides a way to create relational data for the model, this can be supplied using nested object writes.

Each method call returns a Promise for an object that contains all the scalar fields of the model that was just created.

Examples

Create a new user:

const newUser: User = await prisma.createUser({
  name: 'Alice',
  email: 'alice@prisma.io',
})
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Create a new post and set alice@prisma.io as the author:

When using the MySQL or Postgres databases connectors, the following call is executed as a single database transaction. The MongoDB connector doesn't support transactions yet. Learn more in the Declarative nest writes section.

const post: Post = prisma.createPost({
  title: 'Join us for GraphQL Conf in 2019',
  author: {
    connect: { email: 'alice@prisma.io' },
  },
})
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Create a new user with two new posts:

When using the MySQL or Postgres databases connectors, the following call is executed as a single database transaction. The MongoDB connector doesn't support transactions yet.

const newUser: User = await prisma.createUser({
  name: 'Alice',
  email: 'alice@prisma.io',
  posts: {
    create: [
      {
        title: 'Follow @prisma on Twitter',
      },
      {
        title: 'Join us for GraphQL Conf in 2019',
      },
    ],
  },
})
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Updating records

When updating existing records in the database, the update-method receives one input object with two fields:

• data: This is similar to the input object you provide to a create-method. It wraps scalar fields of the model to be updated and lets you provide relational data via nested object writes.
• where: This is used to select the record that should be updated. You can use any unique field to identify the record. For the example datamodel above, this means that for User, Post and Comment it has an id property. For User it additionally accepts the email field.

Each method call returns a Promise for an object that contains all the scalar fields of the model that was just updated.

Examples

Update the role of an existing user:

const updatedUser: User = await prisma.updateUser({
  data: {
    role: 'ADMIN',
  },
  where: {
    id: 'cjli512bd005g0a233s1ogbgy',
  },
})
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Update the author of a post:

const updatedPost: Post = await prisma.updatePost({
  data: {
    author: {
      connect: { email: 'bob@prisma.io' },
    },
  },
  where: { id: 'cjli47wr3005b0a23m9crhh0e' },
})
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Deleting records

When deleting records from the database, the delete-method receives one input object that specifies which record is to be deleted. The type of this input object is identical to the where object in update-methods.

The properties of that object correspond to those fields of the model that are marked as unique. For the example datamodel above, this means that for User, Post and Comment it has an id property. For User it additionally accepts the email field.

Each method call returns a Promise for an object that contains all the scalar fields of the model that was just deleted.

Examples

Delete a post by its id:

const deletedPost: Post = await prisma.deletePost({
  id: 'cjli47wr3005b0a23m9crhh0e',
})
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Delete a user by their email:

const deletedUser: User = await prisma.deleteUser({
  email: 'alice@prisma.io',
})
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Creating or updating objects (upserts)

Upsert operations allow you to try to update an existing record. If that record actually does not exist yet, it will be created. The upsert-methods are a mix of create- and update-methods, meaning they receive an input argument that has three fields:

• where: Identical to the where field provided in update-methods
• update: Identical to the data field provided in update-methods
• create: Identical to the input object provided in create-methods

Examples

Update the role of a user. If the user doesn't exist yet, create a new one:

const updatedOrCreatedUser: User = await prisma.upsertUser({
  where: {
    email: 'alice@prisma.io',
  },
  update: {
    role: 'ADMIN',
  },
  create: {
    name: 'Alice',
    email: 'alice@prisma.io',
    role: 'ADMIN',
  },
})
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Updating and deleting many records in bulk

The Prisma client API offers special methods to update or delete many records at once. Each updateMany- and deleteMany-method returns the number of records that ultimately have been affected by the operation.

Examples

Unpublish three posts by their IDs:

const updatedPostCount: number = await prisma
  .updateManyPosts({
    where: {
      id_in: [
        'cjsviilio0g8f0b430jbnyvi7',
        'cjli6tnkj005x0a2325ynfpb9',
        'cjli6tq3200620a23s4lp8npd',
      ],
    },
    data: { published: false },
  })
  .count()
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Update all posts where the description contains the string prisma and publish them:

const updatedPostsCount: number = await prisma
  .updateManyPosts({
    where: { title_contains: 'prisma' },
    data: { published: true },
  })
  .count()
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Delete all posts that were created before 2018:

const deletePostsCount = await prisma
  .deleteManyPosts({
    createdAt_lte: '2018',
  })
  .count()
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Nested object writes

Nested object writes let you modify multiple database records across relations in a single transaction. Nested object writes are available for create- and update-methods.

Because the model User has a relation to Post via the author field, you can create/update/delete Post records through createUser and updateUser operations. In these cases, the author field in the data object for createUser and updateUser operations can contain one or more of the following keywords:

• create: Creates a new Post record and connects it via the author field to the User record.
• update: Updates a Post record that is connected to a User record via the author field.
• upsert: Updates a Post record that is connected to a User record via the author field or creates a new Post record and connects it via the author field to the User record.
• delete: Deletes a Post record that is connected to a User record via the author field.
• connect: Connects a Post record to a User record via the author field.
• disconnect: Disconnects a Post record from a User record.
• set: Connects a Post record to a User record via the author field. If the Post record was connected to a different User record before, it is disconnected from that one (set effecitvely executes connect and disconnect operations under the hood).

Examples

Create a new user with two new posts and connect one existing post:

const newUser: User = await prisma.createUser({
  name: 'Bob',
  email: 'bob@prisma.io',
  posts: {
    create: [
      {
        title: 'Follow @prisma on Twitter',
      },
      {
        title: 'Join us for GraphQL Conf in 2019',
      },
    ],
    connect: { id: 'cjsviiljo0g9h0b43i943n4ni' },
  },
})
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Delete a comment of a user:

const updatedUser: User = await prisma.updateUser({
  where: { id: 'cjli8znnd006n0a23ywc6wf8w' },
  data: {
    comments: {
      delete: { id: 'cjli6tknz005s0a23uf0lmlve' },
    },
  },
})
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