[TYPO3-mvc] FYI: Progress in implementing support for generic domain models

[Christopher Hlubek]

Hi,

since we try to use Extbase for a project and really need to address the
generic table problem now, I made a few (actually quite a lot) changes
and fixed some bugs to make tableName != className possible.

But I think we have an underlying conceptual problem:

Generic stuff should not be configured in the TCA!

Imagine two different Extbase plugins using a generic table (e.g.
fe_users) and each of these plugins has a model for the generic table (I
think it's pretty obvious that sharing a common predefined model for
generic tables would be stupid). In the TCA you could only configure ONE
model for a table.

IMHO the table name should be configured for the specific model to solve
this problem. I propose (and have implemented) an annotation "table" for
the model classes that is only needed for generic models and will be
parsed by the data mapper with the reflection service. I know that the
table information doesn't belong to the model from a DDD point of view.
But I don't see a better solution right now. We could add that to a
repository and get the information from the repository, but that means
every generic model needs a repository.

So accessing a generic model not only through a relation (that is what I
read below from the post) is absolutely necessary for things like user
registration and pages / content modification or whatever we cannot
imagine right now.

I had some problems to implements this, because dependency injection is
not used for some objects (e.g. the query factory uses a static method
on Dispatcher! to get the persistence manager, which is mainly due to
the fact that the query factory is directly instantiated in a lot of
places). We should really fix that. Furthermore there were some bugs
that are not so obvious when the table name is equal to the class name.

In this patch I also included a fix for a recursion problem with
bidirectional associations (e.g. blog <-> post), where the object must
be registered before mapping properties and relations. We should open a
different bug for that but I didn't have time to exclude the fix from
the patch.

Jochen, if you made progress in the meanwhile please let me know. I have
attached my changes to this message. They are not meant to be commited
right away, but could be used to address the bugs and implement a solution.

I really think we need to get these things right. For me this is a big
blocker.

Greetings,

Christopher


Jochen Rau schrieb:
> Hi.
> 
> I just wanted to inform you about the progress I make on implementing
> support for generic domain models like FrontendUser (=fe_users).
> 
> My current sketch (not committed yet) is that you can say
> 
> --8<--- snip -----
> class Tx_BlogExample_Domain_Model_Administrator
>   extends Tx_Extbase_Domain_Model_FrontendUser {
>      // nothing to define
> }
> --8<--- snap -----
> 
> 
> The generic domain model Tx_Extbase_Domain_Model_FrontendUser implements
> all the class members and methods necessary to access the fields in
> fe_users.
> 
> Inside the Blog you have
> 
> --8<--- snip -----
> /**
>  * The Administrator of the blog
>  *
>  * @var Tx_Extbase_Domain_Model_FrontEndUser
>  */
> protected $administrator;
> --8<--- snap -----
> 
> 
> and in the $TCA you specify
> 
> --8<--- snip -----
> 'administrator' => Array (       
>     [...]
>     'config' => Array (
>         'type' => 'select',
>         'foreign_table' => 'fe_users',
>         'foreign_class' => 'Tx_BlogExample_Domain_Model_Administrator',
>         'maxitems' => 1,
>     )
> ),
> --8<--- snap -----
> 
> You don't need to configure any mapping for yourself.
> 
> I am a little bit enthusiastic about this feature because that enables
> us to implement a lot of generic models for
> 
> - persons
> - addresses
> - places
> - (calendar) events
> ...
> 
> No more reinventing the wheel by every extension developer!
> 
> I need to polish the things a little bit before I can commit it. And
> maybe I have to wait for the refactoring of the whole PID stuff (done by
> Sebastian next week).
> 
> Regards
> Jochen
> 
> 
> 

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