XMLDB creating new DDL functions - pre 2.0

XML database schema > Roadmap > XMLDB Creating new DDL functions

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Justification

Once the XMLDB Structure has been well defined and we are able to abstract any DB model with it, it's time to build one group of functions that will create the needed DB objects based in the information supplied by such XML structure. All those functions will use the underlying XMLB objects (XMLDBTable, XMLDBField, XMLDBKey, XMLDBIndex) in order to keep the level of abstraction across them.

The objectives to be supplied by these functions are:

• Be used by the installation process, replacing the old *.sql usage, to create all the needed DB objects.
• Be used by the upgrade process, in the new upgrade.php script, to handle all the DB objects.

Although initially it wasn't completely decided if all those XMLDB objects were going to be used by the DDL functions, or we were going to create a bunch of new functions, completely independent from the XMLDB schema, finally we decided to use the previously created object, mainly because:

• If we have some objects representing tables, fields and so on, it hasn't too much sense to build new functions requiring the same type of objects as parameters and not to use them.
• Any change in the XMLDB objects will be immediately available to the DDL functions (one new column type...).
• Code inside the DDL functions will be pretty simple because all the SQL code generation will be the responsibility of the XMLDB classes themselves.
• By using the XMLDB objects, the XMLDB Editor (the tool to edit XMLDB structures easily) could be improved in order to generate automatically the needed PHP code to be used by the upgrade.php scripts. Just select one object (table/field/index/key), one action to perform (create/drop/rename/alter) and, wow!, you will obtain all the PHP code to be pasted in the upgrade script. (coming soon) ;-)

The only drawback we have found is that upgrade code will be a bit longer, because it will need to include all the XMLDB objects creation and definition code. But, in the other hand, it will be an easily readable code.

Implementation

Basic Concepts

All the functions will:

• accept one XMLDB objects (the one to be modified) as parameter.
• perform all the possible checks before executing any SQL command against DB.
• return true/false on success/error (the XMLDB object will contain extra info on error, available with the XMLDBObject->getError() function).
• output debug info if enabled.

Handling XMLDB objects

Before calling the DDL functions themselves, the proper XMLDB objects must be properly created and contain all the needed info in order to allow the functions to do their work. The basic code structure for any DDL operation should be:

1. Creation of the XMLDB objects programatically.
2. Invocation of the DDL function.
3. Check for errors

One short example of these steps could be the following PHP lines, used to create a simple table with one primary key and one index:

$field1 = new XMLDBField('id');
$field1->setAttributes(XMLDB_TYPE_INTEGER, '10', XMLDB_UNSIGNED, XMLDB_NOTNULL, XMLDB_SEQUENCE, null, null, null, null);
$field2 = new XMLDBField('name');
$field2->setAttributes(XMLDB_TYPE_CHAR, '255', null, XMLDB_NOTNULL, null, null, null, 'default name', 'id');
$field3 = new XMLDBField('course');
$field3->setAttributes(XMLDB_TYPE_INTEGER, '10', XMLDB_UNSIGNED, XMLDB_NOTNULL, null, null, null, null, 'name');
$field4 = new XMLDBField('type');
$field4->setAttributes(XMLDB_TYPE_CHAR, '20', null, XMLDB_NOTNULL, null, XMLDB_ENUM, array('type1', 'type2', 'type3'), 'type1', 'course');
$field5 = new XMLDBField('summary');
$field5->setAttributes(XMLDB_TYPE_TEXT, 'medium', null, null, null, null, null, null, 'type');

$key1 = newXMLDBKey('primary');
$key1->setAttributes(XMLDB_KEY_PRIMARY, array('id'), null, null);
$key2 = newXMLDBKey('foreignkey1');
$key2->setAttributes(XMLDB_KEY_FOREIGN, array('course'), 'course', array('id)); 

$index1 = newXMLDBIndex(XMLDB_INDEX_NOTUNIQUE, array('type'));

$table = new XMLDBTable('my_first_xmldb_table');
$table->addField($field1);
$table->addField($field2);
$table->addField($field3);
$table->addField($field4);
$table->addField($field5);

$table->addKey($key1);
$table->addKey($key2);

$table->addIndex($index1);

$status = create_table($table);

See also

• DDL functions: To get access to the updated documentation about the functions available to modify the DB objects.
• XML structure: To know a bit more about the internal XML structure used to describe all the DB objects using one neutral language.
• List of functions to create: The list of functions to be created from scratch. Used to follow the progress and its status.