Re: [binarycloud-dev] Er, what is the Entity Manager going to do?

[Justin F. <je...@ey...>]

Aha.  So it is for managing, er, what I might call
"persistant" entities, and that means the database.  This
also looks good, having all that regex stuff/type_checking/
is_required stuff done for ya.  Wonderful.

Well, I was on a parallel universe.  I was _assuming_ some
kind of facility that was a framework that "facilitated"
declarations of, filling of, walking of, array-based
data structures.  I have to let this sink in now.

What I am finding is a "need" for a kind of data-structure-
manipulator-class (DSM Class).  I had some idea that the EntityManager
was going to give me such a facility.  But what I need is
probably too specific for a "Manager".  I find that I am slowly
writing/adding
to this DSM Class to do what I want, and shamefully, it ain't
turning out too general.

The explanation of this need is that I am writing a dynamic
report generator, defined by a web form, and thereby letting
the user define, not only the data sources, but the "look-and-feel"
that the report will use, which will be determined by such
a data structure.  Then I can pass this around serialized,
say, for the session.  Or, if the user wishes to "keep" it,
it can be written to some user preferences/profile table,
maybe mapped to one or a set of reports, or all reports.
And so the EntityManager will make that part easy.

Man, this BC is like being given a harem for your birthday.
You just don't know where to start (or end).

_jef

-------------------------------


Alex Black wrote:
> 
> > Thank you John, for this answer.  It clears up a lot of things,
> > and I feel that it is going to be useful.
> >
> > What seems satisfying is that, if I understand correctly, is
> > that if I need a data structure such as:
> >
> > $setup  = array(
> > 'table' => array(
> >       'border'        => "0",
> >       'align'         => "left",
> >       'bgcolor'       => "#CCCCFF",
> >       'cellspacing'   => "2",
> >       'cellpadding'   => "5",
> >       'width'         => "400",
> >       ),
> > 'header' => array(
> >       'bgcolor'       => "#FFCCCC",
> >       ),
> > 'row' => array(
> >       'bgcolor'       => "#CCFFCC",
> >       ),
> > 'column' => array(
> >       'bgcolor'       => "#FCFFCC",
> >       ),
> > 'other' => array(
> >       'freshmeat'     => true,
> >       ),
> > );
> >
> > that I, somehow, write this out in XML, and somehow, give
> > it an identity/tag/handle/key I can somehow, declare it easily,
> > (and it gets dragged out of ./ent ??), can fill it easily,
> > use it arguments to other module method calls.  It is
> > appreciated that a lot of this effort will be offloaded
> > at compile time and not run time.
> 
> hi Justin,
> 
> the above example isn't correct.
> 
> here's a (simplified) example:
> 
> entity: user
>     username
>         type => text
>         size => '20'
>         regex => 'regex_pattern'
>         field_label => 'User Name'
>         required => true
>     email_address
>         type => email
>         size => '40'
>         field_label => 'Email Address'
>         required => true
> 
> so, you'll have a users table in your database - and it's good to be able to
> do:
> 
> EntityManager->Get(); with a primary key and entity, so you can get back a
> set of data, or, if you are posting data, Entitymanager will enforce the
> rules you defined:
> 
> if you're Adding a user, the username and email_address fields must not be
> empty - username has to match the regex provided, and the email address has
> to match the standard email regex that's implicitly attached to the type.
> 
> Entitymanager is _only_ for data access.
> 
> > In any case, it sounds good.  I will just have to wait,
> > now, for the Stradivarius.
> 
> best,
> 
> _alex
> 
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-- 
Justin Farnsworth
Eye Integrated Communications
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Greenville, NC 27858 | Tel: (252) 353-0722