Todd,
i just had another look at the data model for ACS4.0, and it looks like
they did a lot of what you described in terms of Python's heirarchical
system of permissions. it seems a bit more streamlined than the one i
translated, but in doing so it uses syntax for heirarchical data retrieval
(connect by, etc) which i dont think is supported by MySQL (dont know about
PGSQL). i dont know how performance would fare if we did this in PHP.
it also has the working of your idea of "relational-nodes" (basically
anything can be related to anything else), along with the attendant
code/model for metadata.
this release also features their Content Management engine, the data model
of which also makes for good reading.
of course, its written in TCL and runs on Oracle, but the interesting
thing is that the database code is written for Oracle packages, which makes
it very nicely encapsulated and OOPish, so if you understand pl/sql (not
difficult at all if you understand SQL) , you can easily translate the data
model into some nice PHP classes.
clayton
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