Table Data Gateway and Row Data Gateway are two design patterns that are very closely related. The former specifies an object that acts as a gateway from our system to a table in a database. This means that it will give us the functionality necessary to execute all common operation to that table easily by providing methods to all the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations.
Row Data Gateway provides very similar functionality, but it lets you execute those operations in a single record of a table.
The Zend implementation
Zend Framework provides us with Zend_Db_Table as an implementation of the Table Data Gateway pattern and Zend_Db_Table_Row as an implementation of the Row Data Gateway pattern. The best way to use these implementations is by extending Zend_Db_Table_Abstract and Zend_Db_Table_Row_Abstract respectively.
Here is an example of how to do this:
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class Books extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract
{
// Table name
protected $_name = 'books';
}
Using the patterns in the real world
We will go over an example to explain how to use these patterns in a real Zend application.
Imagine we need to make an application for a books catalog. We would want to have a books class to represent a listing of books, and a book class to represent a single record of the books table.
Lets start by creating our Book class:
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// Extend Zend_Db_Table_Row_Abstract so we get all its functionality
class Book extends Zend_Db_Table_Row_Abstract
{
/* We can add as many extra methods as we find necessary */
// Function to get the publication date in an specific format
public function getPublicationDate($format = 'd/m/Y')
{
$date = new DateTime($this->publication_date);
return $date->format($format);
}
}
And our Books table:
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class Books extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract
{
// Table name
protected $_name = 'books';
// Zend will automatically look for a Class named 'books' and make the rows
// returned by any query to this table, instances of it. This way we will
// have access to getPublicationDate method for all records
protected $_rowClass = 'book';
}
As an example of how to use what we have done so far, we can make a function called getOldestBooks that will return the oldest books in our database:
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class BooksService
{
public function getOldestBooks($quantity = 10)
{
// I am assuming autoload is configured and there is a default database
// adapter already set up
$books = new Books();
$oldestBooks = $books->fetchAll(
$books->select()->order('publication_date')->limit($quantity, 0)
);
// Then we could loop through the result like this
// (Needless to say this is just a demonstration. You shouldn't echo
// anything from a model.
foreach ($books as $book)
{
echo $book->title.'('.$book->getPublicationDate().")<br />";
}
}
}
We used Zend_Db_Select to create a query without writing any SQL code. We can learn how to make more complex queries in Zend_Db_Select documentation.
design_patterns php zend_framework