Question

I have models of my tables and would like to do a join using a model as opposed to to a table.
For example, instead of:

$select = $this->select()
 ->from(array('p' => 'products'),
   array('product_id', 'product_name'))
 ->join(array('l' => 'line_items'),
   'p.product_id = l.product_id',
 ->limit(20, 10);

where I specify the table names and columns I want to join, can I not use my models?

$select = $this->select()
 ->from(array('p' => 'products'),
   array('product_id', 'product_name'))
 ->join(array('l' => Model_Table1::tableName()),
   'p.product_id = l.product_id',
 ->limit(20, 10);

Answer 1

I don’t see why not, if your model has a static variable with the name and a static function to return the variable:

protected static $table = 'dbname';
public static function tableName() {
    return self::$table;
}

Is it worth it though? Is the table name ever going to change?