[Deprecated] DMZ 1.5.3 (DataMapper OverZealous Edition)

[eluser]apersaud[/eluser]
Hi OverZealous,

I'd like to contribute some code that I've added to my DMZ 1.2.1 to make it easier working your objects as Arrays. I'm building an JSON based API for my website (Addicted2Salsa) and came across an issue.

Code:

//only an example of Addicted2Salsa episodes
$e = new Episode();
$e->get();
json_encode($e->all); //causes a recursion issue

What I added were simple methods to my Models so that I can convert them to arrays with only the fields I would like to make available.

Code:

//only an example of Addicted2Salsa episodes
$e = new Episode();
$e->get();
echo json_encode( $e->toArray() ); //this is OK.

This new toArray() will detect whether it is only 1 object or many. So it works on individual items given a $obj->all call.

Code:

//example 2 (a bit more complicated)
$cap = new Caption();
$cap->get();
$result = array();
foreach($cap-all as $c):
     $r = $c->toArray(); //knows it is just 1 item
     $r['extra'] = 'extra'; //add more fields
     $result[] = $r;
endforeach;

echo json_encode($result); //works properly

Since I've been adding it to most of my DMZ models (maybe because I haven't found a better way of doing it), I thought it would be a good idea to contribute it and let you take a look at it. I added a public toArray() which will convert the DMZ object to an Array given the column fields of the object. I have

Code:

/* In Episode class which extends DataMapper */
       /* $filter_fields will filter out the fields and making sure
       we don't expose those when creating our arrays */
     /* in this case, we will not expose id,created,updated and views fields */
      var $filter_fields = array('id', 'created','updated','views');
      
      // ... more methods here ...

       /* Main method */
    public function toArray(){
        
        if(count($this->all) < 2): /* if I'm a single item */
               return $this->_toArray(); /* call the private method */
        else:
                 /* Otherwise handle many */
                  $set = array();

                  foreach($this->all as $i):
                       $set[] = $i->_toArray();
                  endforeach;
            return $set;
        endif;
        
    }

       /* This method handles the single item case */
       /* Variable $filter_fields allows you to specify which
            column fields never to expose as array entries */
    private function _toArray(){
        
        $v = array();
        /* Get the column fields to expose given the ones
            we want to filter out by diff-ing the model columns and $filter_fields */
        $fields = array_diff( $this->fields , $this->filter_fields );
        foreach($fields as $f):
             $v[$f] = $this->$f;
        endforeach;
        return $v;  

    }

I think this might be useful to include some similar functionality in DMZ. These were my 2 cents. :-)
Let me know what you think.