Doctrine ORM

[bantu]

I have used the Doctrine ORM in one of my projects. As soon as your logic gets a bit more complex and you add things like aggregation, you start working around the ORM. An ORM probably works well for trivial projects such as websites, but it won't work for phpBB. The interface to use to talk to the database should be SQL.

[MichaelC]

The advantages of an ORM are as follows:

• Neater
• You don't need to use SQL, just PHP
• Easy to pick up
• Organised entities
• The model data is all together so it’s easier to update, maintain and reuse.
• Handles sanitization etc. when you persist to the database

The ORM can be used for all new database objects and older ones can be refactored to use it. Essentially to edit something in the database you manipulate an object rather than do direct SQL although you can still use the DBAL/SQL when the ORM does not provide enough control for your usage.

This depends on the Doctrine DBAL and would likely be for 3.2.

[JoshyPHP]

How long would it take to write a basic model for the main objects used in phpBB? A PoC would surely help people form an opinion or update their old opinion. I haven't used Doctrine since the early 2.0 versions, and back then it lacked some features that made me forgo trying to use it. I haven't had the occasion to use it since then. I'd wager that a lot of people have had a similar experience.

IIRC, the two pain points were auto_incremented IDs in mutually referencing records and composite indices (perhaps unique composite indices, can't remember exactly.)

[hanakin]

are you wanting to come up with one for phpbb or implement one that already exists? Also isn't their one included in symphony? I have not worked with symphony at all but I have worked with Larval which uses eloquent

[brunoais]

The advantages of an ORM are as follows:

• You don't need to use SQL, just PHP

Are you sure that's an advantage?
I've always been confused with abstractions... (hence I can't handle rails)

• Handles sanitization etc. when you persist to the database

Does it sanitize it really properly or it almost does it properly?
The tendency I see too much is not to do stuff properly and do it such that it just works...

[hanakin]

it makes it more readable and adds better ability to work with crud for apis in my opinion

[Pony99CA]

For those of us who have no idea what you're talking about, what is an ORM? I searched and there were several definitions that seemed to fit.

Remember, one principle of good communication is defining your acronyms when first used.

Steve

[hanakin]

ORM stands for Object Relational Mapper here is an article detailing how to use the eloquent ORM along with a basic level description http://codehappy.daylerees.com/eloquent-orm

[MichaelC]

For those of us who have no idea what you're talking about, what is an ORM? I searched and there were several definitions that seemed to fit.

Remember, one principle of good communication is defining your acronyms when first used.

Steve

This is a board for technical discussion and I used a technical term which the majority of developers here will know what it refers to whilst others can, as you stated, google it. I also described what an ORM did.

[imkingdavid]

For those who are unaware of what Doctrine ORM is, here is the website where it gives a brief definition as well as documentation with examples.