Field Types

Field types are declared in Define. The Go struct describes business data; the schema builder describes database metadata.

Scalar types

s.Field("Name").String().Size(120)
s.Field("Description").Text()
s.Field("Enabled").Bool().Default(true)
s.Field("Quantity").Int()
s.Field("Views").BigInt()
s.Field("Price").Decimal(12, 2).Default(0)
s.Field("Ratio").Float()
s.Field("Payload").Binary()

Common numeric fields:

s.Field("Age").Int()
s.Field("Stock").Uint()
s.Field("Count").BigInt()
s.Field("Total").UnsignedBigInt()

Time types

s.Field("CreatedAt").Timestamp()
s.Field("Birthday").Date()
s.Field("SendAt").Time()

oro.Model already includes conventional primary key and timestamps. Custom models can still declare additional time fields.

Oro stores time.Time in UTC and converts scanned values to Config.Location on read. The default location is time.UTC.

JSON and arrays

s.Field("Meta").JSON().Nullable()
s.Field("Tags").StringArray()
s.Field("Scores").IntArray()

Array support differs by database. Dialects map to the best native capability and may fall back to JSON or text where needed.

Semantic types

s.Field("Email").Email()
s.Field("URL").URL()
s.Field("IP").IP()
s.Field("MAC").MAC()
s.Field("Phone").Phone()
s.Field("Slug").Slug()
s.Field("Color").Color()
s.Field("Location").Point()

Semantic types make schema definitions readable. The final database type is still chosen by the dialect.

Enum

s.Field("Status").Enum("draft", "published", "archived").Default("draft")

Enums document legal values for sync and schema inspection. Databases without native enum support can map them to strings plus constraints or to conservative strings.

Nullable

s.Field("Stock").Uint().Nullable()

For Go values, prefer oro.Null[T] when you want convenient JSON and database null handling:

type Product struct {
    oro.Model
    Stock oro.Null[uint]
}

Soft delete is explicit. Add softdelete.SoftDeleteFields from extensions/softdelete to use the conventional DeletedAt -> deleted_at field:

type Product struct {
    oro.Model
    softdelete.SoftDeleteFields
}

For a custom soft-delete field, mark the field with SoftDelete():

s.Field("RemovedAt").Column("removed_at").SoftDelete()

Defaults

s.Field("Price").Uint().Default(0)
s.Field("Status").String().Default("active")
s.Field("CreatedAt").Timestamp().DefaultExpr("CURRENT_TIMESTAMP")

Default is a literal value. DefaultExpr is a database expression and depends on dialect support.

Indexes and unique constraints

s.Field("Code").String().Unique()
s.Field("Status").String().Index()

s.Index("idx_orders_status", "Status")
s.Unique("uk_products_code", "Code")

Field-level indexes are good for single-column cases. Model-level indexes are clearer for composite indexes and explicit naming.

Full-text indexes

s.Field("Title").String().FullText()
s.Field("Body").Text()
s.FullText("ft_posts_title_body", "Title", "Body")

MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite have different full-text syntax and limits. Oro keeps one schema definition and lets the dialect compile it.

Hidden and Virtual

s.Field("PasswordHash").String().Hidden()
s.Field("CommentsCount").Virtual()

Hidden excludes a field from default serialization. Virtual receives aggregate or computed values and does not participate in table creation.

Column override

s.Field("PasswordHash").Column("password_hash").String()

Without Column, Oro uses snake_case. Use Column only when the database column cannot be naturally derived from the Go field name.