Migrations with Separate Entity Definition - nestjs

Question

I am trying to update my database using the entities with separate entity definition.
The database isn't updated either with the option synchronize = true or with the command:
ts-node ./node_modules/typeorm/cli.js migration:generate -n CreateDatabase
which generates an empty migration file.
What am I forgetting?
Steps to reproduce or a small repository showing the problem:
ormconfig.json
{
"type": "postgres",
"host": "localhost",
"port": 5432,
"username": "postgres",
"password": "secret",
"database": "app",
"entities": ["src/**/entities/*.entity.ts"],
"migrations": ["src/database/migrations/*.ts"],
"cli": {
"migrationsDir": "src/database/migrations"
},
"synchronize": true
}
topic.entity.ts
export class Topic {
title: string
}
topic.schema.ts
import { EntitySchema, EntitySchemaColumnOptions } from 'typeorm'
import { Topic} from '../topic.entity'
export const TopicSchema = new EntitySchema<Topic>({
name: 'topics',
target: Topic,
columns: {
title: {
name: 'title',
type: 'text',
nullable: true,
} as EntitySchemaColumnOptions,
},
})

Answer 1

Try split the topic.entity.ts to topic.entity.ts and topic.schema.ts and use only the topic.schema.ts on your ormconfig.json.
Change the entities section from your ormconfig.json to:
"entities": ["src/**/entities/*.schema.ts"]

Answer 2

I was struggling with this. What I did was to split into
Model and Schema. Model is a common Class.
Session.ts
export class Session {
token: string;
userId: string;
}
Session.entity.ts
And Schema. If you forget target it unifies every entity into one table. Don't forget that. And use the same name as model so it matches properly.
import {EntitySchema} from "typeorm";
import { Session } from "../models/Session";
export const SessionEntity = new EntitySchema<Session>({
name: "Session", // BE CAREFUL: must be the same name as Model, STRING
target: Session, // This must be the Class itself, NOT STRING
columns: {
token: {
type: String,
primary: true,
generated: "uuid"
},
userId: {
type: String
}
}
});
And to use it
import { SessionEntity } from "../entities/Session.entity";
const connection = this.typeORMService.get("default");
const repository = this.ormService.connection.getRepository(SessionEntity);
const session = await repository.save({userId: "123"});
Another issue that you may have is that if you add your settings in the code and in ormconfig.json it will use the code settings. So be careful with that as well.
I prefer to setup settings in code like this:
const rootDir = __dirname;
#Configuration({
rootDir,
typeorm: [
{
name: "default",
synchronize: true,
type: "postgres",
url: process.env.DATABASE_URL || config.DATABASE_URL,
ssl: process.env.DATABASE_URL ? true : false, // If env var is not set then it is dev
"entities": [
`${rootDir}/**/*.entity.js`,
`${rootDir}/**/*.entity.{ts,js}`
],
"migrations": [`${rootDir}/migrations/**/*.js`],
subscribers: [
`${rootDir}/subscriber/*.js}`
]
}
]
})
I hope you find this useful. If you have any doubts please let me know.