I'm writing a web application using PHP/Symfony2/Doctrine2 and just finishing up the design of the Database. We have to import these objects (for ex. Projects, Vendors) into our database that come from different customers with variety of fields. Some customers have 2 fields in the project object and some have 20. So I was thinking about implementing them in MongoDB since it seems like a good use for it.
Symfony2 supports both ORM and ODM so that shouldn't be a problem, Now my question is how to ensure the integrity of the data in both databases. Because Objects in my MySQL db need to somehow be linked to the objects in the MongoDB for integrity issues.
Are there any better solutions out there? Any help/thoughts would be appreciated
Bulat implemented a Doctrine extension while we were at OpenSky for handling references between MongoDB documents and MySQL records, which is currently sitting in their (admittedly outdated) fork of the DoctrineExtensions project. You'll want to look at either the orm2odm_references or openskyfork branches. For this to be usable in your project, you'll probably want to port it over to a fresh fork of DoctrineExtensions, or simply incorporate the code into your application. Unfortunately, there is no documentation apart from the code itself.
Thankfully, there is also cookbook article on the Doctrine website that describes how to implement this from scratch. Basically, you rely on an event listener to replace your property with a reference (i.e. uninitialized Proxy object) from the other object manager and the natural behavior of Proxy objects to lazily load themselves takes care of the rest. Provided the event listener is a service, you can easily inject both the ORM and ODM object managers into it.
The only integrity guaranteed by this model is that you'll receive exceptions when trying to hydrate a bad reference, which is probably more than you'd get by simply storing an ID of the other database and querying manually.
So the way we solved this problem was by moving to Postgres. Postgres has a datatype called hstore that acts like a NoSQL column. Works pretty sweet
UPDATE
Now that I'm looking back, go with jsonb instead of json or hstore as it allows you to have more of a data structure than a key-value store.
Related
I have a core data schema file with relationships between the entities.
I need to create a SQL database and would like to know if it can be created automatically (MySql or MS-SQL) using only this file.
Looking at the SQLite DB I see that the relationships are not mapped in any logical way.
First, your assessment that the relationships are "not mapped in any logical way" is not correct. If you look carefully at the Core Data generated database you will discover that the relationships are mapped exactly as in any other old relational database scheme, i.e. with foreign keys referring to rows in other tables.
Also, the naming conventions in these SQLite databases are very transparent (e.g., entity and attribute names start with Z, etc.
That being said, I would strongly discourage you to hack the Core Data generated database file, or even to use it to inform another database scheme, the reason being that these are undocumented features that could change any time without notice and thus break any code you write based on them.
IMO, the most practical thing to do is to rewrite the model quickly in the usual MySQL schema format and update it manually as well when you change the managed object model.
If you would like to automate the process, there is a rich set of APIs provided for interpreting and parsing NSManagedObjectModel, including classes like NSEntityDescription, NSAttributeDescription etc. You could write a framework that iterates though your entities and attributes and generates a text file that is a readable schema for MySQL, complete with information about indexing, versions etc..
If you go down that route, please make sure to notify us and do post your framework on Github for the benefit of others.
If you use Core Data you can create an SQL based database using a schema file but its structure is entirely controlled by the Core Data framework. Apple specifically tell us as developers to leave it alone and do not edit it using libsqlite or any other method. If you do then Core Data won't have anything to do with you!
In terms of making your own DB using one of Apple's schema files, I'm sure it is possible, but you'd have to know the inner workings of the Core Data framework to even attempt it.
In terms of making your own SQLite DB then you have to sort out all the relationships and mapping yourself.
I think that mixing and matching Core Data resources and custom built SQLite databases is probably a headache waiting to happen. I have used both methods and find that Core Data is brilliant (especially with iCloud) as long as you're OK with your App being limited to Apple only.
The problem I have with the various ORM modules available for databases like MySQL and MongoDB is the inability to keep model information coupled with the database itself.
I want to be able to add a model to my ORM setup at runtime via an administrative HTTP interface and give it some fields that may be ascribed to various predefined data types (like 'email' or 'telephone number'). Possibly the most contentious feature I'm after is the ability to cast a field as a data type that has already been previously defined by the user as a model.
Is this just me trying to have my cake and eat it? Can anybody see a way of implementing something like this? All the ORM modules I've seen so far simply require instantiating models at application level, essentially before runtime.
It's probably worth mentioning I'm hoping to implement this in a Node environment (not a classic LAMP setup).
EDIT:
I take it from the lack of community bite that I may have stumbled back into the Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch issue here?
If your solution depends on multiple drivers, you can try light-orm. It is simple wrapper for relations dbs.
I have an existing MySQL database, I would like to import the schema into Xcode and create a Core Data data model.
Is there a way (tool, process) to import the CREATE statements so I don't have to build the models "by hand"?
As an intermediary step I could convert to SQLite, I'm not worried about the relationships, foreign keys etc just auto-generating the Entities (Tables) and Properties (Columns).
Actually I needed the feature so badly too that I have decided to make an OSX utility to do so. BUT... then I found a utility in the Mac Appstore that (partially) solves this problem (it was free for some time, I do not know its current state). Its called JSONModeler and what it does is parsing a json tree and generates the coredata model and all derived NSManagedObject subclasses automatically. So a typical workflow would be:
Export the tables from MySQL to xml
Convert the xml to json
Feed the utility with that json and get your coredata model
Now, for a more complicated scenario (relationships etc) I guess you would have to tweak your xml so it would reflect a valid object tree. Then JSONModeler will be able to recreate that tree and export it for coredata.
The problem here is that entities are not tables and properties are not columns. Core Data is an object graph management system and not a database system. The difference is subtle but important. Core Data really doesn't have anything to do with SQL it just sometimes uses SQL as one its persistence options.
Core Data does use a proprietary sqlite schema and in principle you can duplicate that but I don't know of anyone who has succeeded in a robust manner except for very simple SQL databases. Even when they do, its a lot of work. Further, doing so is unsupported and the schema might break somewhere down the line.
The easiest and most robust solution is to write a utility app to read in the existing DB and create the object graph as it goes. You only have to run it once and you've got to create the data model anyway so it doesn't take much time.
I'm going to start a new project which is going to be small initially but may grow to big over the years. I'm strongly convinced that I'm going to use ASP.NET MVC with jQuery for UI. I want to go for MySQL as database for some reasons but worried on few things.
I'm totally new to Linq but it seems that it is easier to use once you are familiar with it.
First thing is that accessing data should be easy. So I thought I should use MySQL to Linq but somewhere I read that it is not directly supported but MySQL .NET connector adds support for EntityFramework. I don't know what are the pros and cons of it. DbLinq is what I also heard. I would love if I can implement repository pattern as it allows to apply filter in logic layer rather than in data access layer. Will it be possible if I use Entity Framework?
I'm also concerned about the performance. Someone told me that if we use Entity framework it fetches lot of data and then filter it. Is that right?
So questions basically are -
Is MySQL to Linq possible? If yes where can I get more details on it?
Pros and cons of using EntityFramework or DbLinq with MySQL?
Will it be easy to access data using EntityFramework or DbLinq with MySQL?
Will I be able to implement repository pattern which allows applying filter in logic layer rather than data access layer (when I use EntityFramework with MySQL)
Does it fetches hell lot of data from database and then apply filter on it?
If it sounds too many questions from my side in that case, if you can just let me know what you will do (with a considerable reason) in this situation as an experienced person in this area, that should answer my question.
As I am fan of ALT.NET I would recomend you to use NHibernate for your project instead of EntityFramework, you may google for the advantages over it, I am convinced you'll choose it.
Based on the points you've mentioned, then I would seriously consider going with MS SQL instead of MySQL initially and implementing LINQ-to-SQL instead of Entity Framework, and here's why:
The fact that you are anticipating a lot of traffic initially tells me that you need to think about where you plan to end up, rather than where to start. I have considerably more experience with MS SQL than I do with MySQL, but if you're talking about starting with the community version of MySQL and upgrading later, you're going to be incurring a significant expense anyway with the Enterprise version.
I have heard there is a version of LINQ that supports MySQL, but, unless things have changed recently, it is still in beta. I am completing an 18-month web-based project that used ASP.NET MVC 1.0, LINQ-to-SQL, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, and MS SQL. I implemented the repository pattern, view models, interfaces, unit tests and integration tests using WatiN. The combination of technologies worked very well for me, and I plan to go with the same combination for a personal project I'm developing.
When you get MS SQL with a hosting plan, you typically have the ability to create multiple databases from that single instance. It looks like they give you more storage because they give you multiple MySQL databases, but that's only because the architecture only supports the creation of one database per instance.
I won't use the Entity Framework for my ASP.NET MVC projects, because I wasn't crazy about ADO.NET in the first place. I don't want to have to open a connection, create a command object, populate a parameter collection, issue the execute method, and then iterate through a one-way reader object to get my data. Once you see how LINQ-to-SQL simplifies the process, you won't want to go back either. In the project I mentioned earlier, I have over 60 tables in the database with about 200 foreign key relationships. Because I used LINQ-to-SQL with the repository pattern in my data layer, I was able to build the application using not a single stored procedure. LINQ-to-SQL automatically protects against SQL injection attacks and support optimistic and pessimistic concurrency checking.
I don't know what your project is, but you don't want to get into a situation where you're going to have trouble scaling the application later. Code for the end result, not for the starting point, and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches later.
First a bit about the environment:
We use a program called Clearview to manage service relationships with our customers, including call center and field service work. In order to better support clients and our field technicians we also developed a web site to provide access to the service records in Clearview and reporting. Over time our need to customize the behavior and add new features led to more and more things being tied to this website and it's database.
At this point we're dealing with things like a Company being defined partly in the Clearview database and partly in the website database. For good measure we're also starting to tie the scripting for our phone system into the same website, which will require talking to the phone system's own database as well.
All of this is set up and working... BUT we don't have a good data layer to work with it all. We moved to Linq to SQL and now have two DBMLs that we can use, along with some custom classes I wrote before I'd ever heard of Linq, along with some of the old style ADO datasets. So yeah, basically things are a mess.
What I want is a data layer that provides a single front end for our applications, and on the back end manages everything into the correct database.
I had heard something about Entity Framework allowing classes to be built from multiple sources, but it turns out there can only be one database. So the question is, how could I proceed with this?
I'm currently thinking of getting the Linq To SQL classes all set for each database, then manually writing Linq compatible front ends that tie those together. Seems like a lot of work, and given Linq's limitations (such as not being able to refresh) I'm not sure it's a good idea.
Could I do something with Entity Framework that would turn out better? Should I look into another tool? Am I crazy?
The Entity Framework does give a certain measure of database independence, insofar as you can build an entity model from one database, and then connect it to a different database by using a different entity connect string. However, as you say, it's still just one database, and, moreover, it's limited to databases which support the Entity Framework. Many do, but not all of them. You could use multiple entity models within a single application in order to combine multiple databases using the Entity Framework. There is some information on this on the ADO.NET team blog. However, the Entity Framework support for doing this is, at best, in an early stage.
My approach to this problem is to abstract my use of the Entity Framework behind the Repository pattern. The most immediate benefit of this, for me, is to make unit testing very simple; instead of trying to mock my Entity model, I simply substitute a mock repository which returns IQueryables. But the same pattern is also really good for combining multiple data sources, or data sources for which there is no Entity Framework provider, such as a non-data-services-aware Web service.
So I'm not going to say, "Don't use the Entity Framework." I like it, and use it, myself. In view of recent news from Microsoft, I believe it is a better choice than LINQ to SQL. But it will not, by itself, solve the problem you describe. Use the Repository pattern.
if you want to use tools like Linq2SQl or EF and don't want to have to manage multiple DBMLS (or whaetever its called in EF or other tools), you could create views in your website database, that reference back to the ClearView or Phone system's DB.
This allows you to decouple your web site from their database structure. I believe Linq2Sql and EF can use a view as the source for an Entity. If they can't look at nHibernate.
This will also let you have composite entities that are pulled from the various data sources. There are some limitations updating views in SQL Server; however, you can define your own Instead of trigger(s) on the view which can then do the actual insert update delete statements.
L2S works with views, perfectly, in my project. You only need to make a small trick:
1. Add a secondary DB table to the current DB as a view.
2. In Designer, add a primary key attribute to a id field on the view.
3. Only now, add an association to whatever other table you want in the original DB.
Now, you might see the view available for the navigation.