Question

I’m trying to create a system more dynamic for my users, implementing a way of they create each necessary information when they needed. (Sorry if my english is weak)

First, I have a table named User, like this:

User:

id   |   name   |    login   |     password

1    |   Rose   |  rose.120  |     897763
2    |   John   |  john.red  |     120347
3    |   Mark   |  mark.foo  |     385598

and the other table with some info of each user:

User_info:

id  |  user_id  |  info_name      |   value          |  required  |  order

6   |   1       | Telephone       |  555-4083        |   yes      |   2 
7   |   1       | Email           |  [e-mail]  |   yes      |   1 
8   |   1       | Another E-mail  |  [e-mail]  |   no       |   3 

When I get this values from the database, how make an efficient way to set a PHP Object, or an Array of this values.
I tried to make a mysql_query and with this result make a loop in the Object, and for any Row make a WHERE clause to the user id. (I’m using CodeIgniter)

    if( $user != false ) $this->getUser();
    foreach( $this->user->result() as $row ) {
        $this->db->where('user_id', $row->id);
    }
    $this->db->from('user_info');
     ...

and when I have this Object I will need to put the User_info rows in the User Object. Correct?
I’m just curious if this is a good way of doing this, or I’m in the wrong way.
I hope that’s clear.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Basically, yes. You could set up your model to define a method for retrieving information from both your user_info and user tables, however. Something along these lines:

// in user_model.php
function get_user_with_info() {
  $user = $this->getUser();
  $user['info'] = $this->db->where('user_id', $row->id)->from('user_info')->row();

  return $user;
}

If you are planning to make this query often, you will quickly run into the N+1 problem. A better option in Codeigniter might be to use a table join in a get_users function:

function get_users() {
  $this->db->select('*')
  $this->db->from('user');
  $this->db->join('user_info', 'user.id = user_info.user_id');

  $results = $this->db->result();
  $users = [];
  foreach ($results as $result) {
    $user_id = $result['user_id'];
    if (!isset($users[$user_id])) {
      $users[$user_id] = array(
        'id' => $user_id,
        'info' => array(
          // add info fields from first result
        )
      );
    } else {
      $users[$user_id]['info'][] = array( 
        // add additional info fields
      );
    }
  }
  return $users;
}

You will need to adjust the specifics, but hopefully this gives somewhere to start.