Abstracting SQL Statements In An Object

[Scott Auge]

I am looking for comments on something that lets me abstract database
updates in an object.

Lemme explain what I am thinking:

Lets say I have an object Person with...

SetFirstName()
SetLastName()

etc.

(Basically the goal is for the development team to use the objects and
not try to write to the database themselves.)

Well, what I am trying to avoid is when I call SetFirstName() and then
call SetLastName() the execution of two UPDATE statements. I would like
to combine it all into one single UPDATE or INSERT so I am not beating
up on the database.

I am thinking I would need to store the changes into variables local to
the class and then maybe calling a SendSQL() function or something like
that to generated SQL changes of the data to the database.

Something like:

$DB->query("BEGIN TRANSACTION");

// Person fools around with $DB
$Person->SetFirstName(" Something");
$Person->SetLastName ("Something" );
$Person->SendSQL();

// Another object fooling around with $DB
$AnotherOBj->SomeMethod ("Foo");
$AnotherOBj->SendSQL();

$DB->query ("COMMIT TRANSACTION");

Anyhow - opinions and experiences are welcome!

[Jerry Stuckle]

Scott Auge wrote:

I am looking for comments on something that lets me abstract database
updates in an object.

Lemme explain what I am thinking:

Lets say I have an object Person with...

SetFirstName()
SetLastName()

etc.

(Basically the goal is for the development team to use the objects and
not try to write to the database themselves.)

Well, what I am trying to avoid is when I call SetFirstName() and then
call SetLastName() the execution of two UPDATE statements. I would like
to combine it all into one single UPDATE or INSERT so I am not beating
up on the database.

I am thinking I would need to store the changes into variables local to
the class and then maybe calling a SendSQL() function or something like
that to generated SQL changes of the data to the database.

Something like:

$DB->query("BEGIN TRANSACTION");

// Person fools around with $DB
$Person->SetFirstName(" Something");
$Person->SetLastName ("Something" );
$Person->SendSQL();

// Another object fooling around with $DB
$AnotherOBj->SomeMethod ("Foo");
$AnotherOBj->SendSQL();

$DB->query ("COMMIT TRANSACTION");

Anyhow - opinions and experiences are welcome!

Scott,

Generally, classes do not access the database unless specifically requested.
You might have four class members, for instance - fetch(), update(), insert()
and delete(). Each does its respective operations based on the data in the
current object (fetch() usually requires a key).

Another common class is the list class, which fetches an array of objects based
on select criteria.

But no, you do NOT want to update the database every time you issue a
GetFirstName() or SetFirstName(). The former needlessly requires access to the
database, and the latter may update the database when you don't want it updated
(i.e. change the name - but verify the change with the user before actually
updating the database).

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Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
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