Tracking model changes in SQLAlchemy

SQLAlchemy tracks the changes to each attribute. You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) query the instance again in the event. Additionally, the event is triggered for any instance that has been modified, even if that modification will not change any data. Loop over each column, checking if it has been modified, and store any new values.

@event.listens_for(cls, 'before_update')
def before_update(mapper, connection, target):
    state = db.inspect(target)
    changes = {}

    for attr in state.attrs:
        hist = attr.load_history()

        if not hist.has_changes():
            continue

        # hist.deleted holds old value
        # hist.added holds new value
        changes[attr.key] = hist.added

    # now changes map keys to new values