5.6. Models

• 5.6.1. Usage
• 5.6.2. API (2)

A model is a representation of an object; simply deals with key/value pairs. Models become useful when pairing it with a data store, JSON results, services etc. Implementing this object can be done like so.

Instantiating

use Cradle\Data\Model;

$model1 = new Model;

//or

$model2 = new Model(['foo_bar' => 'zoo']);

5.6.1. Usage

We managed to loosely define models which takes off the restrictiveness of other model definitions and adds scalability as an end result. First off, what we did was define a generic, yet powerful model class that can be extended, but also can be used as is. Our model class is already powerful enough to solve for a lot of use cases, you might not need to extend it. We played around with this concept and here’s what we came up with.

$model->setUserName('Chris'); //set user name
$model->getUserEmail(); // returns user email

//$model->setAnyThing() // set or get any abstract key

echo $model['user_name']; //access as array
$model['user_email'] = 'my@email.com'; //set as array

echo $model->user_name; //access as object
$model->user_name = 'my@email.com'; //set as object

//iterate
foreach ($model as $key => $value) {
    //Do something
}

When converting models to strings, a JSON string version will be the result.

echo $model1; //--> {"foo_bar":"zoo"}

5.6.2. API

A model object mounts ArrayAccessTrait, CountableTrait, GeneratorTrait, IteratorTrait, MagicTrait, DotTrait (see Data Traits) and implements 2 additional methods.

get - Returns the entire data set.

$model2->get(); //--> ['foo_bar' => 'zoo']

set - Sets the entire data set.

$model1->set(['foo_bar' => 'zoo']);