ORM

Kohana 3.0 includes a powerful ORM module that uses the active record pattern and database introspection to determine a model's column information.

The ORM module is included with the Kohana 3.0 install but needs to be enabled before you can use it. In your application/bootstrap.php file modify the call to Kohana::modules and include the ORM module:

Kohana::modules(array(
    ...
    'orm' => MODPATH.'orm',
    ...
));

Configuration

ORM requires little configuration to get started. Extend your model classes with ORM to begin using the module:

class Model_User extends ORM
{
    ...
}

In the example above, the model will look for a users table in the default database.

Model Configuration Properties

The following properties are used to configure each model:

Type	Option	Description	Default value
`string`	_table_name	Table name to use	`singular model name`
`string`	_db	Name of the database to use	`default`
`string`	_primary_key	Column to use as primary key	`id`
`string`	_primary_val	Column to use as primary value	`name`
`bool`	_table_names_plural	Whether tables names are plural	`TRUE`
`array`	_sorting	Array of column => direction	`primary key => ASC`
`string`	_foreign_key_suffix	Suffix to use for foreign keys	`_id`

Using ORM

Loading a Record

To create an instance of a model, you can use the ORM::factory method or the ORM::__construct:

$user = ORM::factory('user');
// or
$user = new Model_User();

The constructor and factory methods also accept a primary key value to load the given model data:

// Load user ID 5
$user = ORM::factory('user', 5);

// See if the user was loaded successfully
if ($user->loaded()) { ... }

You can optionally pass an array of key => value pairs to load a data object matching the given criteria:

// Load user with email joe@example.com
$user = ORM::factory('user', array('email' => 'joe@example.com'));

Searching for a Record or Records

ORM supports most of the Database methods for powerful searching of your model's data. See the _db_methods property for a full list of supported method calls. Records are retrieved using the ORM::find and ORM::find_all method calls.

// This will grab the first active user with the name Bob
$user = ORM::factory('user')
    ->where('active', '=', TRUE)
    ->where('name', '=', 'Bob')
    ->find();

// This will grab all users with the name Bob
$users = ORM::factory('user')
    ->where('name', '=', 'Bob')
    ->find_all();

When you are retrieving a list of models using ORM::find_all, you can iterate through them as you do with database results:

foreach ($users as $user)
{
    ...
}

A powerful feature of ORM is the ORM::as_array method which will return the given record as an array. If used with ORM::find_all, an array of all records will be returned. A good example of when this is useful is for a select list:

// Display a select field of usernames (using the id as values)
echo Form::select('user', ORM::factory('user')->find_all()->as_array('id', 'username'));

Counting Records

Use ORM::count_all to return the number of records for a given query.

// Number of users
$count = ORM::factory('user')->where('active', '=', TRUE)->count_all();

If you wish to count the total number of users for a given query, while only returning a certain subset of these users, call the ORM::reset method with FALSE before using count_all:

$user = ORM::factory('user');

// Total number of users (reset FALSE prevents the query object from being cleared)
$count = $user->where('active', '=', TRUE)->reset(FALSE)->count_all();

// Return only the first 10 of these results
$users = $user->limit(10)->find_all();

Accessing Model Properties

All model properties are accessible using the __get and __set magic methods.

$user = ORM::factory('user', 5);

// Output user name
echo $user->name;

// Change user name
$user->name = 'Bob';

To store information/properties that don't exist in the model's table, you can use the _ignored_columns data member. Data will be stored in the internal _object member, but ignored at the database level.

class Model_User extends ORM
{
    ...
    protected $_ignored_columns = array('field1', 'field2', ...);
    ...
}

Multiple key => value pairs can be set by using the ORM::values method.

$user->values(array('username' => 'Joe', 'password' => 'bob'));

Creating and Saving Records

The ORM::save method is used to both create new records and update existing records.

// Creating a record
$user = ORM::factory('user');
$user->name = 'New user';
$user->save();

// Updating a record
$user = ORM::factory('user', 5);
$user->name = 'User 2';
$user->save();

// Check to see if the record has been saved
if ($user->saved()) { ... }

You can update multiple records by using the ORM::save_all method:

$user = ORM::factory('user');
$user->name = 'Bob';

// Change all active records to name 'Bob'
$user->where('active', '=', TRUE)->save_all();

Using `Updated` and `Created` Columns

The _updated_column and _created_column members are provided to automatically be updated when a model is updated and created. These are not used by default. To use them:

// date_created is the column used for storing the creation date. Use format => TRUE to store a timestamp.
protected $_created_column = array('column' => 'date_created', 'format' => TRUE);

// date_modified is the column used for storing the modified date. In this case, a string specifying a date() format is used.
protected $_updated_column = array('column' => 'date_modified', 'format' => 'm/d/Y');

Deleting Records

Records are deleted with ORM::delete and ORM::delete_all. These methods operate in the same fashion as saving described above with the exception that ORM::delete takes one optional parameter, the id of the record to delete. Otherwise, the currently loaded record is deleted.

Relationships

ORM provides for powerful relationship support. Ruby has a great tutorial on relationships.

Belongs-To and Has-Many

We'll assume we're working with a school that has many students. Each student can belong to only one school. You would define the relationships in this manner:

// Inside the school model
protected $_has_many = array('students' => array());

// Inside the student model
protected $_belongs_to = array('school' => array());

To access a student's school you use:

$school = $student->school;

To access a school's students, you would use:

// Note that find_all is required after students
$students = $school->students->find_all();

// To narrow results:
$students = $school->students->where('active', '=', TRUE)->find_all();

By default, ORM will look for a school_id model in the student table. This can be overriden by using the foreign_key attribute:

protected $_belongs_to = array('school' => array('foreign_key' => 'schoolID'));

The foreign key should be overridden in both the student and school models.

Has-One

Has-One is a special case of Has-Many, the only difference being that there is one and only one record. In the above example, each school would have one and only one student (although this is a poor example).

// Inside the school model
protected $_has_one = array('student' => array());

Like Belongs-To, you do not need to use the find method when referencing the Has-One related object - it is done automatically.

Has-Many "Through"

The Has-Many "through" relationship (also known as Has-And-Belongs-To-Many) is used in the case of one object being related to multiple objects of another type, and visa-versa. For instance, a student may have multiple classes and a class may have multiple students. In this case, a third table and model known as a pivot is used. In this case, we will call the pivot object/model enrollment.

// Inside the student model
protected $_has_many = array('classes' => array('through' => 'enrollment'));

// Inside the class model
protected $_has_many = array('students' => array('through' => 'enrollment'));

The enrollment table should contain two foreign keys, one for class_id and the other for student_id. These can be overriden using foreign_key and far_key when defining the relationship. For example:

// Inside the student model (the foreign key refers to this model [student], while the far key refers to the other model [class])
protected $_has_many = array('classes' => array('through' => 'enrollment', 'foreign_key' => 'studentID', 'far_key' => 'classID'));

// Inside the class model
protected $_has_many = array('students' => array('through' => 'enrollment', 'foreign_key' => 'classID', 'far_key' => 'studentID'));

The enrollment model should be defined as such:

// Enrollment model belongs to both a student and a class
protected $_belongs_to = array('student' => array(), 'class' => array());

To access the related objects, use:

// To access classes from a student
$student->classes->find_all();

// To access students from a class
$class->students->find_all();

Validation

ORM is integrated tightly with the Validate library. The ORM provides the following members for validation:

_rules
_callbacks
_filters
_labels

`_rules`

protected $_rules = array
(
    'username' => array('not_empty' => array()),
    'email'    => array('not_empty' => array(), 'email' => array()),
);

username will be checked to make sure it's not empty. email will be checked to also ensure it is a valid email address. The empty arrays passed as values can be used to provide optional additional parameters to these validate method calls.

`_callbacks`

protected $_callbacks = array
(
    'username' => array('username_unique'),
);

username will be passed to a callback method username_unique. If the method exists in the current model, it will be used, otherwise a global function will be called. Here is an example of the definition of this method:

public function username_unique(Validate $data, $field)
{
    // Logic to make sure a username is unique
    ...
}

`_filters`

protected $_filters = array
(
    TRUE       => array('trim' => array()),
    'username' => array('stripslashes' => array()),
);

TRUE indicates that the trim filter is to be used on all fields. username will be filtered through stripslashes before it is validated. The empty arrays passed as values can be used to provide additional parameters to these filter method calls.

Checking if the Object is Valid

Use ORM::check to see if the object is currently valid.

// Setting an object's values, then checking to see if it's valid
if ($user->values($_POST)->check())
{
    $user->save();
}

You can use the validate() method to access the model's validation object.

// Add an additional filter manually
$user->validate()->filter('username', 'trim');

ORM