[Poop-scoop] ANNOUNCE: SPOPS 0.38

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

I'm happy to announce the release of SPOPS 0.38. What is it?

S imple
P erl
O bject
P ersistence
  with
S ecurity

Since this *is* a list devoted to object persistence, I'll just quote
from the gospels of the README:

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

WHAT IS IT?
====================

SPOPS is a robust and powerful module that allows you to serialize
objects. It is unique in that it also allows you to apply security to
these objects using a fairly simple but powerful scheme of users and
groups. (You can, of course, turn off security if you want.)

It's also unique in that for most objects, you will not need to write
any code. It's true! A fairly simple configuration file is all you
need which you can then feed to SPOPS and have a class for your object
ready to go, right out of thin air.

The configuration you specify not only lists the properties of the
object and possibly some information about where its data should be
stored, but can also describe the relationship an object might have
with another object (or objects).

One great benefit is that you can retrofit SPOPS to existing data. If
you don't use any of the metadata layers or security, you can simply
describe your data in a configuration file, process the configuration
and start making (and processing) objects! If you want to add security
to these objects later, it's easy!


SHOW ME THE CODE!
====================

Here's a sample session. In it, we have a simple configuration file
which names the table in our database and the fields in the table,
along with the primary key field. We process the config, then create a
new object with our just-created class.

(Note that this code is copied directly from the file
'eg/fatbomb_dbi.pl'. See it for more details or to run it yourself.)

 my $spops = {
      fatbomb => {
        class        => 'My::ObjectClass',
        isa          => [ qw/ SPOPS::DBI::MySQL SPOPS::DBI / ],
        field        => [ qw/ fatbomb_id calories cost name servings / ],
        base_table   => 'fatbomb',
        id_field     => 'fatbomb_id',
        skip_undef   => [ qw/ servings / ],
        sql_defaults => [ qw/ servings / ],
      },
 };
 
 SPOPS::Configure::DBI->process_config( { config      => $spops,
                                          require_isa => 1 } );
 My::ObjectClass->class_initialize;
 
 my $object = My::ObjectClass->new;
 $object->{calories} = 1500;
 $object->{cost}     = '$3.50';
 $object->{name}     = "Super Deluxe Jumbo Big Mac";
 my $fb_id = eval { $object->save( { db => $db } ) };
 if ( $@ ) {
    my $ei = SPOPS::Error->get;
    die "Error found! ($@) Error information: ", Dumper( $ei ), "\n";
 }
 print "Object saved ok!\n",
       "Object ID: $fb_id\n",
       "Servings:  $object->{servings}\n";

We can strip out the 'skip_undef' and 'sql_defaults' items in the
configuration and we'd have the bare minimum configuration for a
SPOPS::DBI object.


APPLICATION-SPECIFICITY 
====================

Up to now, this library has been tied relatively closely to the
OpenInteract project (www.openinteract.org, or check out the CPAN
module OpenInteract). However, it should be able to stand on its own
two feet -- we've used it like this without any problem. But there
might be a few assumptions lurking around the code somewhere. If you
spot something that looks totally out of place or appears to have no
real purpose, let us know!


HOW DO I SAY IT?
====================

It's usually pronounced so it rhymes with 'mess mops', although you're
free to make up your own.

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

SPOPS is available through CPAN using a Bundle file (Bundle::SPOPS)
and has CVS available at SourceForge under the auspices of the
OpenInteract project.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/openinteract/

If there's enough interest we can create a separate mailing list, but
in the meantime if you have questions shoot them over to the
openinteract-dev list.

Thanks!

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.