How to load data as nested JSONB from non-JSONB postgres tables - postgresql

Question

I'm trying to construct an object for use from my postgres backend. The tables in question look something like this:
We have some Things that essentially act as rows for a matrix where the columns are Field_Columns. Field_Values are filled cells.
Create Table Platform_User (
serial id PRIMARY KEY
)
Create Table Things (
serial id PRIMARY KEY,
INTEGER user_id REFERENCES Platform_User(id)
)
Create Table Field_Columns (
serial id PRIMARY KEY,
TEXT name,
)
Create Table Field_Values (
INTEGER field_column_id REFERENCES Field_Columns(id),
INTEGER thing_id REFERENCES Things(id)
TEXT content,
PRIMARY_KEY(field_column_id, thing_id)
)
This would be simple if I were trying to load just the Field_Values for a single Thing as JSON, which would look like this:
SELECT JSONB_OBJECT(
ARRAY(
SELECT name
FROM Field_Columns
ORDER BY Field_Columns.id
),
ARRAY(
SELECT Field_Values.content
FROM Fields_Columns
LEFT JOIN Field_Values ON Field_Values.field_column_id = Field_Columns.id
AND Field_Values.thing_id = Things.id
ORDER BY Field_Columns.id)
)
)
FROM Things
WHERE Thing.id = $1
however, I'd like to construct the JSON object to look like this when returned. I want to get an object of all the Fields:Field_Values objects for the Things that a user owns
{
14:
{
'first field':'asdf',
'other field':''
}
25:
{
'first field':'qwer',
'other field':'dfgdsfg'
}
43:
{
'first field':'',
'other field':''
}
}
My efforts to construct this query look like this, but I'm running into the problem where the JSONB object function doesn't want to construct an object where the value of the field is an object itself
SELECT (
JSONB_OBJECT(
ARRAY(SELECT Things.id::TEXT
FROM Things
WHERE Things.user_id = $2
ORDER BY Things.id
),
ARRAY(SELECT JSONB_OBJECT(
ARRAY(
SELECT name
FROM Field_Columns
ORDER BY Field_Columns.id),
ARRAY(
SELECT Field_Values.content
FROM Field_Columns
LEFT JOIN Field_Values ON Field_Values.field_column_Id = Field_Columns.id
AND Field_Values.thing_id = Things.id
ORDER BY Field_Columns.id)
)
FROM Things
WHERE Things.user_id = $2
ORDER BY Things.id
)
)
) AS thing_fields
The specific error I get is function jsonb_object(text[], jsonb[]) does not exist. Is there a way to do this that doesn't involve copious text conversions and nonsense like that? Or will I just need to abandon trying to sort my data in the query and do it in my code instead.

Answer 1

Your DDL scripts are syntactically incorrect so I created these for you:
create table platform_users (
id int8 PRIMARY KEY
);
create table things (
id int8 PRIMARY KEY,
user_id int8 REFERENCES platform_users(id)
);
create table field_columns (
id int8 PRIMARY KEY,
name text
);
create table field_values (
field_column_id int8 REFERENCES field_columns(id),
thing_id int8 REFERENCES things(id),
content text,
PRIMARY KEY(field_column_id, thing_id)
);
I also created some scripts to populate the db:
insert into platform_users(id) values (1);
insert into platform_users(id) values (2);
insert into platform_users(id) values (3);
insert into platform_users(id) values (4);
insert into platform_users(id) values (5);
insert into things(id, user_id) values(1, 1);
insert into things(id, user_id) values(2, 1);
insert into things(id, user_id) values(3, 2);
insert into things(id, user_id) values(4, 2);
insert into field_columns(id, name) values(1, 'col1');
insert into field_columns(id, name) values(2, 'col2');
insert into field_values(field_column_id, thing_id, content) values(1, 1, 'thing1 val1');
insert into field_values(field_column_id, thing_id, content) values(2, 1, 'thing1 val2');
insert into field_values(field_column_id, thing_id, content) values(1, 2, 'thing2 val1');
insert into field_values(field_column_id, thing_id, content) values(2, 2, 'thing2 val2');
Please include such scripts next time when you ask for help, and make sure that your scripts are correct. This will reduce the work needed to answer your question.
You can get your jsonb value by aggregating the key value pairs with jsonb_object_agg
select
t.id,
jsonb_object_agg(fc.name, fv.content)
from
things t inner join
field_values fv on fv.thing_id = t.id inner join
field_columns fc on fv.field_column_id = fc.id
group by 1
The results looking like this:
thing_id;jsonb_value
1;"{"col1": "thing1 val1", "col2": "thing1 val2"}"
2;"{"col1": "thing2 val1", "col2": "thing2 val2"}"