PHP: Best way to make all database fields accessible inside my class?

Question

I'm developing a class for my PHP application. The code is being moved into a more OO approach with most of the logic residing in the class. Early on into the development of this, I created individual functions for pulling information from the database:

function getUserID($id) function getMemberID($id) function getUserEmailAddress($id) function getUserFullName($id) function getAnalysisConditionId($id) ... etc.

I have lots of functions for pulling out individual field elements from within the database. In fact, I think I have a function for about 50% of the fields in my database. I'm starting to think this is a bit excessive and that this should be done another way.

I thought about building a function (like getUserInfo($id)) and in this function I would query all of the fields in the User table, including any joins related to return all of the relevant fields. I would then return an array of every field in the resulting table. Then if I needed this information somewhere in my application, I could just call it $class->getUserInfo($id)['id'].

Would this be the best way to do this? Should I even make every field available throughout my application? Thanks for your input!

Have you considered using an ORM instead of building one yourself? — ThiefMaster
– ThiefMaster, Commented May 21, 2012 at 20:19
Yes, use an existing ORM. Doctrine's been mentioned - consider Propel also. — halfer
– halfer, Commented Jul 6, 2012 at 16:40

ametren · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-21 20:21:28Z

2

You should check out one of several ORM solutions available out there. I'm a fan of Doctrine myself. Basically, they will manage all of this for you and often times they even will help you generate the accessor methods.

answered May 21, 2012 at 20:21

ametren

2,25616 silver badges20 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Jeff Over a year ago

I have checked out Doctrine. I don't know if I want to reinvent everything just yet--I may try to implement this in version 2 of this project maybe. I think I may stick with just making my own less-evolved ORM and work on implementing this in the future. Thanks for the suggestion!

Samy Dindane · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-21 20:22:08Z

Give a look at the Active Record design pattern. It's similar to what you're trying to do.

And as others suggested, no need to reinvent the wheel for basic stuff. Simply use an ORM (Doctrine2 is actually the most popular for PHP).

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:27:59Z

I'd have to agree with the other answers here and suggest you look into an existing solution. If, however, you really want to do this yourself you could use PHP's magic methods to create all these getter methods dynamically. Here is a brief explanation of how this can be done. You could easily adapt this code to return data from the database instead of an array like the example.

But really, you should look into existing solutions, they will save you a lot headaches.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP: Best way to make all database fields accessible inside my class?

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Linked

Related