Hacking associations

[jrivero]

Hi! i need help...

I modified paris __get magic method with this:

    public function __get($property) {
        if (method_exists($this, $property)) {
            return call_user_func(array($this, $property));
        }
        return $this->orm->get($property);
    }

and the example of profile belong_to to this:

class Profile extends Model {
    public function user() {
        return $this->belongs_to('User')->find_one();
    }
}

This is good for this call $user = $profile->user; echo $user->name; But have problems with this another echo $profile->user->name

Have any idea what could be the problem? syntax looks cool!

Regards, Jordi

[jrivero]

hehehe.... i see my fatal error. This is the corrected code:

public function __get($property) {
    if (method_exists($this, $property)) {
        $this->$property = call_user_func(array($this, $property));
    }
    return $this->orm->get($property);
}

[jrivero]

wow! and added this function to my user class:

public function __toString() {
    return $this->name;
}

and have this $profile->user, very cool, sexy and pythonic ;)

[jrivero]

optimized version of __get for not repeat queries:

    public function __get($property) {
        if (!$value = $this->orm->get($property) and method_exists($this, $property)) {
            return $this->$property = call_user_func(array($this, $property));
        }
        return $value;
    }

[j4mie]

Nice idea - but I'm leaving towards not adding this to Paris.

In Django, you define your model classes and all their properties in Python code. If I'm reading some Django code and I see a call to car.manufacturer, for example, I can go and look in my models.py file at the Car class and immediately see that it has a ForeignKey property called manufacturer.

Paris doesn't know anything about your database tables, so I wouldn't know at a glance if call to $car->manufacturer (using your __get extension) is simply looking up the value of a column (the manufacturer's name might be stored as a string, for example) or whether it's performing a complex database query.

That's one of the reasons I went down the route of implementing associations through method calls - to make it absolutely clear that the call to $car->manufacturer() is actually doing something (running another query) rather than just accessing a property of your object.

The Zen of Python says "Explicit is better than implicit," so I actually think it's more Pythonic without the __get magic.

What do you think? Feel free to disagree!

[jrivero]

Hi j4mie,

With the change is exactly the same of django. If you read the code and see a call to $car->manufacturer, for example, i can go and look in the model Car.php file and immediately see that it has a function property called manufacturer which generates a call to the corresponding model Manufacturer.php file and return find_one or find_many dependent on the relationship.

Elsewere, I use Haanga template engine one of clone django templates and put in my templates {{ car.manufacturer.name }} and haanga compiles $car->manufacturer->name. Twig is another clone of django template and does the same. Not... $car->manufacturer()->name

This is my opinion. I know very well django.

For some time I am using your idiorm and I like a lot, now I love paris. For now, I think is the best orm of the many I've tried. Thank you very much.

[j4mie]

Agreed. I do think it's a nice idea, but it's conceptually a bit different to accessing properties on a Django model instance, and it's a little bit too "magic" for my tastes. Feel free to add it to your own fork or subclass of Paris.

Thanks again for the comments - really glad you like Idiorm and Paris.