ActiveRecord for CodeIgniter: Rails-style model interactions

[eluser]webthink[/eluser]
I managed to do both.
The modification to allow for descriptive/intuitive foreign key names turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Just add this code in join() after the conditionals inside the foreach where $inflected gets set.

Code:

foreach ($this->get_fields() as $field)
{
    if (stristr($field,$inflected))
    {
        //remove _id from end of field name
        $inflected = substr($field, 0, -3);
    }
}

That's it. This allows you to have a foreign key called something like birth_city_id
and get an object that looks something like

field1
field2
birth_city_id
birth_city_name

The changes required for having <b>multiple</b> foreign keys is a bit more involved.
The following replaces everything from

Code:

foreach ($tables as $inflected=>table)

to

Code:

$alias = $this->_class_name . '_' . $table. '_';

inclusive

here it is

Code:

for ($i=0; $i<count($tables); $i++)
        {
            $table = $tables[$i];
            
            
            if ( is_object($table) && get_parent_class($table) == 'ActiveRecord' )
            {
                $parent = $table;
                $inflected = $table->_class_name;
                $table = $table->_table;
            }
            else if ( !is_string($inflected) )
            {
                $inflected = trim(substr($table, 0, -1));
                $table = trim($table);
            }
            
            if (! array_key_exists($table, $foreign_keys) )
            {
                $foreign_keys[$table] = array();
                foreach ($this->get_fields() as $field)
                {
                    if (stristr($field,$inflected))
                    {
    
                        $foreign_keys[$table][] = $field;
                    }
                }
                if (count($foreign_keys[$table]) > 1)
                {
                    for ($j=0; $j < count($foreign_keys[$table]) - 1; $j++)
                    {
                        $tables [] = $table;
                    }
                }
                $fk_index[$table] = 0;
            }
            //remove _id from end of field name
            $inflected = substr($foreign_keys[$table][$fk_index[$table]], 0, -3);
            $fk_index[$table] ++;
            // Make an alias for a joined table to prevent collision
            $alias = $this->_class_name . '_' . $table. '_'. $fk_index[$table];

...

this will allow you to have foreign keys such as birth_city_id, residence_city_id
and end up with an object that looks like
field1
field2
birth_city_id
birth_city_name
residence_city_id
residence_city_name

These changes preserve the ability to use the regular table_id where appropriate

Hope someone is finds it helpful.