Models in Zupal

Drupal uses the domain model -- that is, a data access responsibility class with the abilities of both an ActiveRecord object and a table class. The interface for a domain model is pretty straightforward:

Zupal_Domain_IDomain

• save() : void
• delete() : void
• find($crit = NULL, $sort = NULL) : Zupal_Domain_IDomain[]*
• findOne($crit = NULL, $sort = NULL) : Zupal_Domain_IDomain*
• findAll($sort = NULL) : Zupal_Domain_IDomain[]*
• toArray() : array

_{*A given implementor will return objects of the same type as itself.}

The find methods are stripped down queries; they find all the records whose fields have the values specified by the key/value; i.e., to find all the people in a leads table of a given email address, pass array('email' => 'me@domain.com') to the find() method:

$stub = new Contacts_Model_Leads();
foreach($stub->find(array('email' => 'me@domain.com')) as $lead):
echo "<p>Lead ", $lead->id(), 
' has email &quot;me@domain.com&quot;</p>';
endforeach;

While you can still access straight SQL calls through the embeddded table resource, I have found that 90% of the data I need can be achieved through the find interface -- an array of target property values and a sort key.

In most respects, the class acts like a Zend_Db_Table_Row_Abstract implementor -- you can get or set field values by name due to magic handling.

Zupal_Domain_Abstract implements Zupal_Domain and contains a table() method that returns a Zend_Db_Table. All the default domain classes use Zend_Db as a basis; however there is no reason that you can't create domain classes that use other ORMs or even low-level SQL or JSON techniques.

Zupal_Domain_Abstract

• Zupal Domain Abstract brings a lot more to the picture:
• Its constructor allows for a wide variety of input, from ID keys to pre-fetched Zend_Db_Table_Row objects to a special "stub" constant that prevents the object from representing any given row, turning it into a specialized table/factory class.
• It allows for generalized join definitions and "virtual field" access to joined rows.
• It contians a table() method that returns a Zupal_Table_Abstract class, itself a lightweight extension of Zend_Db_Table_Abstract.
• It has a find_from_sql() method that returns an array of Domain objects from a single Query, thus breaking the "One Query Per ActiveRecord" performance wall.

It also, of course, satisfies the above interface.