Does SQLAlchemy have an equivalent of Django's get_or_create?

Question

I want to get an object from the database if it already exists (based on provided parameters) or create it if it does not.

Django's get_or_create does this. Is there an equivalent shortcut in SQLAlchemy?

I'm currently writing it out explicitly like this:

def get_or_create_instrument(session, serial_number):
    instrument = session.query(Instrument).filter_by(serial_number=serial_number).first()
    if instrument:
        return instrument
    else:
        instrument = Instrument(serial_number)
        session.add(instrument)
        return instrument

Answer 1

That's basically the way to do it, there is no shortcut readily available AFAIK.

You could generalize it ofcourse:

def get_or_create(session, model, defaults=None, **kwargs):
    instance = session.Query(model.filter_by(**kwargs).first()
    if instance:
        return instance, False
    else:
        params = dict((k, v) for k, v in kwargs.iteritems() if not isinstance(v, ClauseElement))
        params.update(defaults)
        instance = model(**params)
        session.add(instance)
        return instance, True