Question

I am using CI, however this question applies to models and db persistence in general. I find myself creating methods in models like:-

private function create_joins() {
  # Add some joins to the global db object using the active record 
}

I do this so I can then perform common joins for a particular model without duplicating the code for creating the joins.

So a select method might be:-

public function get_by_id($id) {

    $this->db->select('some_cols');
    $this->db->from('some_table');
    $this->create_joins();
    $this->db->where(array('id' => $id));
    etc...
}

Which is fine, but I am wondering if this is the sort of thing that an ORM like datamapper can abstract away?

Answer 1

You should try Doctrine, which is one of the most advanced ORM in PHP:

Using Doctrine, you won’t even have to write methods such as get_by_id($id) in your model : they are handled by Doctrine itself.
So you would be able to write:

$entityManager->find("Bug", $id);