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A proposal for a unified interface to access Tikiwiki data

TikiObject

General goals:

  • Improve the Tikiwiki infrastructure for the future
  • Allow smooth transition from the current structure
  • Improve performance

Userland


Goals:

  • Readable, because we spend more time reading code than writing it
  • Unified, to make it easy to jump from one section to the other from the code
  • Expandable, to let features be added easily without compromising the code base
  • Easy, to reduce the learning curve


Samples:

  • The following samples are only proposal

Create a new object
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<?php

$page = TikiObject::create( 'wiki page' );
$page['name'] = "HelloWorld";
$page['lang'] = 'en';
$page['description'] = 'Sample page to draw out TikiObject';
$page->content = "!Hello
Sample content

!World
...";

$page->save();
?>


Syntax details:

  • Factory method to build a new object with object type as parameter
  • Brackets used to store indexable data
  • Property used to store large data like wiki text blocks
  • Unified save method
  • Fully abstracted from the storage

Edit and use existing object
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<?php

$page = TikiObject::fetch( 'wiki page', 123 );
$page['award'] = "Editor's Choice";
$page->save();

$smarty->assign( 'current', $page );
// echo TikiLib::parse_data( $page['content'] );
echo TikiLib::parse_data( $page->content );

?>


Syntax details:

  • Factory method to obtain existing objects
  • Unified save applies to updates as well as creation
  • Object can be passed around freely
  • Reading values can be done from either properties or brackets to make it easier to access from templates

Collection handling
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<?php

$list = TikiCollection::query( array( 'core', 'meta' ) )
	->include( 'wiki page' )
	->like( 'name', 'Hello%' )
	->between( 'creationDate', time() - 3600*24*30, time() - 3600*24*15 )
	->exists( 'award' )
	->fetch();

$pageNames = $list->getArray( 'name' );

foreach( $list as $object )
    unset( $object['award'] );

$list->update();

foreach( $list as $object )
	echo $object;

?>


Syntax details:

  • Fluent interfaceQuestion to build the query
  • Selection of selected fields
  • Batch collection operations to manipulate objects

Backend


Goals:

  • Storage independence, to adapt to specific needs, allow refactoring
  • Be usable with the current database structure
  • Allow flexibility to add meta-data and custom fields
  • Support batch operations to scale


Big picture:

  • Allow both standard normalized table storage and column-based storage
  • Object type definitions using a pluggable architecture
  • Each field defines it's own storage method
  • Object types define the hooks to be called on various operations to suit specific needs

Proposed interfaces
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<?php

/**
 * $objectType refers to the name of the object type, like 'wiki page', 'fgal', ...
 * Properties and array indices are alphanumeric and follow the camelCase convension.
 * Reserved names: id, objectType
 */
class TikiObject implements ArrayAccess
{
    /**
     * Initialization function
     */
    static function registerHandler( TikiObject_TypeHandler $handler ) { /* ... */ }

    static function create( $objectType ) { /* ... */ }
    static function fetch( $objectType ) { /* ... */ }

    function save() { /* ... */ }

    function __get( $name ) { /* ... */ }
    function __set( $name, $value ) { /* ... */ }
}

interface TikiObject_TypeHandler
{
    function getFields();
    function acceptsMetaData();

    /**
     * Pre- hooks return a boolean. Operation will not be performed
     * unless the function returns true.
     */
    function preCreate( TikiObject $object );
    function postCreate( TikiObject $object );
    function preUpdate( TikiObject $object );
    function postUpdate( TikiObject $object );
    function preDelete( TikiObject $object );
    function postDelete( TikiObject $object );
}

/**
 * Proposed to use Zend_Filter and Zend_Validate.
 */
class TikiObject_Field
{
    function getFilters() { /* ... */ }
    function getValidators() { /* ... */ }

    function getName() { /* ... */ }
    function getLabel() { /* ... */ }

    function getStorage() { /* ... */ }
}

interface TikiObject_Storage
{
    function save( $objects );
}

?>


Proposed classes:

  • TikiObject_WikiHandler, TikiObject_TrackerHandler, TikiObject_TrackerFieldHandler, ...
  • TikiObject_TableStorage, TikiObject_ColumnStorage, TikiObject_AmazonS3?, ...


Object collaboration:
Image

Remaining issues:

  • Error handling
  • Storage layer details / batch support
  • Caching
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