Hi all,
I've been using the Zend_Db component for a while, but I am missing one
little, though important, thing: Object Relational Mapping (i.e. how do you
map a database row into an object).
I strongly beleive this should not be the responsability of the model
objects. Since they're passed around by the controller to the view, they
should be as plain and stupid as possible. You wouldn't want the view to
knowingly access the database.
I think the Zend_Db is missing some sort of OR Mapper that allows the
creation of these Simple Objects (or even better, a proxy object that
targets it). I've created a small prototype (it works, but the code is
extremely ugly) of a "DB Manager" that uses XML configuration files that
describe how the Simple Objects (usually domain/model objects) are mapped
from and to the database. I've even added a lazy initialization feature,
which is useful for large BLOB values or 1 to many relationships.
Small usage example:
$db_Manager = new Db_Manager($zend_db_adapter);
$my_domain_object = $db_Manager->load("My_Domain_Object", $my_id);
(load fetches an object of the given class and given ID from the database)
Does such ORM component deserve a place in the Zend Framework and are there
any people that would like to create it with me? Please let me know.
Regards,
Allard Buijze
PS. Some ideas of the ORM and the XML configuration are borrowed from
Hibernate. Check www.hibernate.org
