Re: Design Dilemma - Database Data Abstraction

Martin Alterisio wrote:

I have a dilemma on a design where I humbly ask your help. I'm working on the model part of a web application (not to be understood in the "web2.0" way, but in a more general way, where anything mounted on HTTP is a web application) done in PHP5 following the MVC design pattern. But the strong point is that the result must be those-who-never-RTFM-proof. But that's not my dilemma, I only mention this so that no RoR concept or similar is thrown into the table, that is, NO ActiveRecord. The solution I presented is to access, and act upon, a database as if they were PHP arrays, meaning that a table is presented as an array of records. Here comes my dilemma. But first let me explain a bit about the scenario so far:

I snip there - too much detail without defining the problem ;) Database Data Abstraction normally refers to using a common internal structure which can be loaded from a range of database engines. It sounds as if you have no requirement to 'Abstract' the database, only to come up with a persistent object layer under a single database engine? You have indicated that you are looking for a multi-user system, and so the raw data must be in the database, but as you have seen, the flexibility afforded by any database engine is difficult to duplicate. The thing to remember is that you should ONLY be reading the data you need for the current user, and so your persistent objects do not need to be as complex as you seem to be looking for. It is always faster to ask the database for an answer than to copy everything to PHP in order to work with it. With any decent database you can provide views of the data in a suitable format for the arrays you need display on the user interface. I tried to find something suitable to point you at, but it's difficult http://www.appelsiini.net/~tuupola/php/DB_DataContainer/ Is probably in line with your current outline? -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://home.lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://home.lsces.co.uk MEDW - http://home.lsces.co.uk/ModelEngineersDigitalWorkshop/ Treasurer - Firebird Foundation Inc. - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php