Doctrine complex entities - mysql

Let's say i have two Doctrine entities:
Users and Messages
Every user can have 'n' messages.
Now I want to display the mailbox for a user so I fetch the user entity from the ORM and from this entity I get all messages. No problem so far.
But now i want to have some more complexe filtering of the messages. For example: Max age, Max count, blacklisting some words etc. So the default getter method of the entity for getting the messages isn't enough.
How can i solve this?
A entity repository is the first thing i found but then i have to ask this repoitory from outside of the user object which breaks the relationship of user and message (repository->getMessagesForUser(userId,...) instead of user->getMessages(...)) which doesn't look like a 'clean' OOP solution for me.
Another way i could think of is to ignore all this fancy ORM stuff and write my own models and getting the informations from the database on the lowest ORM or even DBAL layer. And ether wrap the entity or fill the fields of my own models manually. But then i ask myself: "Why did i use Doctrine?".
So what's the best practice for this case. By the way i use Symfony 2.

In this specific case, I would definitely make the Message its own aggregate, and therefore would create a Repository for it, and remove the relationship from User to Message. The User can have many Messages anyway, so it would be very inefficient to use the other approach.
I would then create specific methods in the MessageRepository:
class MessageRepository
{
public function findByUser(User $user) {
// ...
}
public function findReadMessagesByUser(User $user) {
// ...
}
}

Related

Laravel: How to get counter value when inserting with UUID and Auto Increment

My models have both id and counter attributes. The id is a UUID, and the counter is an integer which is auto-incremented by the database.
Both are unique however I rely on id as the primary key. The counter is just a human-friendly name that I sometimes display to the user.
Immediately before an object is created a listener gives it a UUID. This works fine.
When the record is saved, MySQL increments the counter field. This works fine except that the copy of the object which I have in memory does not have the counter value. I can reload the object to find out what its counter is, but that would require another database query.
Is there a way to find the value of the counter without a specific database query? For example, is it returned as part of the response from the database when a record is created?
Few things:
Use create(array $attributes) and you'll get exactly what you want. For this having right, you have to ensure that $fillable array consists all attributes' names passed to create method.
You should use Observer on model instead of listener (most likely creating method).
Personal preference using Eloquent is that you should use id for id (increment field) and forget custom settings between models because by default it is what relations expect and so on
public function secondModels()
{
return $this->hasMany(SecondModel::class);
}
is pretty much no brainer. But for having this working best way would be (also following recommendations of this guy) FirstModel::id, SecondModel::id, SecondModel::first_model_id; first_models, second_models as table names. Avoiding and/or skipping this kind of unification is lot of custom job afterward. I don't say it can't be done but it is lot of non-first-time-successful work done.
Also, if you want visitor to get something other than id field name, you can make computed field with accessor:
/**
* Get the user's counter.
*
* #return string
*/
public function getCounterAttribute(): string
{
return (string)$this->id;
}
Which you call then with $user->counter.
Also personal preference of mine is to have most possible descriptive variable names so uuid field of mine would be something like
$table->uuid('uuid4');
This is some good and easy to make practice of Eloquent use.
Saying all this let me just to say that create() and save() will return created object from database while insert() shall not do it.

Symfony2 and Doctrine Mysql Test Database Persist

I have a basic OneToMany relationship between an Administratorand Role.
The owning side is Administrator:
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="App\PublicBundle\Entity\Role", mappedBy="administrator", cascade="persist")
**/
private $roles;
public function __construct() {
$this->roles = new ArrayCollection();
}
The inverse side is Role.
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="App\PublicBundle\Entity\Administrator", inversedBy="roles")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="admin_id", referencedColumnName="admin_id")
**/
private $administrator;
The Administrator can have many Roles like ROLE_ADMIN or ROLE_USER.
The code to save them atomically is...
$administrator = new Administrator();
$administrator->setName('Mario');
$administrator->setLastname('Superman');
$administrator->setUsername('mario#gmail.com');
$administrator->setPassword('password');
$role_admin = new Role();
$role_admin->setRole('ROLE_ADMIN');
$role_admin->setAdministrator($administrator);
$role_user = new Role();
$role_user->setRole('ROLE_USER');
$role_user->setAdministrator($administrator);
$administrator->setRoles($role_admin);
$administrator->setRoles($role_user);
$em->persist($administrator);
$em->persist($role_user);
$em->persist($role_admin);
$em->flush();
Basic stuff. This code is inside a Symfony2 controller that is called via Ajax. It throws an Integrity constraint violation where he says that he cannot put null in admin_id column beacuse it is null. It also emmits two notices that say undefined index role_id.
The strange stuff is that the rows are not saved but the admin_id on the administrators table gets incremented.
The even stranger stuff is that I have a UnitTest that does the same thing (literally the same thing with the same code) and persists the entities.
So how code test code work but the same code in the live controller doesn't?
EDIT: I call the controller via Ajax and it doesn't get persisted but if I go straight to the url that make a request with ajax, it gets persisted two times. Ones for the ajax post request and the second when i go straight to link on the browser. Am I missing something basic here beacuse I have a feeling that I am.
The answer is that my database was named as test_suite what mysql regarded as a test database. I don't know the details but it seems that every database that has test_ like names is regared by mysql in special rules. As I said, i don't know the details but I couldn't make a transactional insert statement in that kind of database.
When I created a new database called suit, everything worked.
This blog post
doesn't say that transactional insert statements are prohibited in test databases, but it seems that it is a bad idea to name your database test_ like. I didn't know that and had to learn it the hard way

Laravel Eloquent how to limit access to logged in user only

I have a small app where users create things that are assigned to them.
There are multiple users but all the things are in the same table.
I show the things belonging to a user by retrieving all the things with that user's id but nothing would prevent a user to see another user's things by manually typing the thing's ID in the URL.
Also when a user wants to create a new thing, I have a validation rule set to unique but obviously if someone else has a thing with the same name, that's not going to work.
Is there a way in my Eloquent Model to specify that all interactions should only be allowed for things belonging to the logged in user?
This would mean that when a user tries to go to /thing/edit and that he doesn't own that thing he would get an error message.
The best way to do this would be to check that a "thing" belongs to a user in the controller for the "thing".
For example, in the controller, you could do this:
// Assumes that the controller receives $thing_id from the route.
$thing = Things::find($thing_id); // Or how ever you retrieve the requested thing.
// Assumes that you have a 'user_id' column in your "things" table.
if( $thing->user_id == Auth::user()->id ) {
//Thing belongs to the user, display thing.
} else {
// Thing does not belong to the current user, display error.
}
The same could also be accomplished using relational tables.
// Get the thing based on current user, and a thing id
// from somewhere, possibly passed through route.
// This assumes that the controller receives $thing_id from the route.
$thing = Users::find(Auth::user()->id)->things()->where('id', '=', $thing_id)->first();
if( $thing ) {
// Display Thing
} else {
// Display access denied error.
}
The 3rd Option:
// Same as the second option, but with firstOrFail().
$thing = Users::find(Auth::user()->id)->things()->where('id', '=', $thing_id)->firstOrFail();
// No if statement is needed, as the app will throw a 404 error
// (or exception if errors are on)
Correct me if I am wrong, I am still a novice with laravel myself. But I believe this is what you are looking to do. I can't help all that much more without seeing the code for your "thing", the "thing" route, or the "thing" controller or how your "thing" model is setup using eloquent (if you use eloquent).
I think the functionality you're looking for can be achieved using Authority (this package is based off of the rails CanCan gem by Ryan Bates): https://github.com/machuga/authority-l4.
First, you'll need to define your authority rules (see the examples in the docs) and then you can add filters to specific routes that have an id in them (edit, show, destroy) and inside the filter you can check your authority permissions to determine if the current user should be able to access the resource in question.

Forcing LINQ to use a Stored Procedure when accessing a Database

I've done some searches (over the web and SO) but so far have been unable to find something that directly answer this:
Is there anyway to force L2S to use a Stored Procedure when acessing a Database?
This is different from simply using SPROC's with L2S: The thing is, I'm relying on LINQ to lazy load elements by accessing then through the generated "Child Property". If I use a SPROC to retrieve the elements of one table, map then to an entity in LINQ, and then access a child property, I believe that LINQ will retrieve the register from the DB using dynamic sql, which goes against my purpose.
UPDATE:
Sorry if the text above isn't clear. What I really want is something that is like the "Default Methods" for Update, Insert and Delete, however, to Select. I want every access to be done through a SPROC, but I want to use Child Property.
Just so you don't think I'm crazy, the thing is that my DAL is build using child properties and I was accessing the database through L2S using dynamic SQL, but last week the client has told me that all database access must be done through SPROCS.
i don't believe that there is a switch or setting that out of the box and automagically would map to using t sprocs the way you are describing. But there is now reason why you couldn't alter the generated DBML file to do what you want. If I had two related tables, a Catalog table and CatalogItem tables, the Linq2SQL generator will naturally give me a property of CatalogItems on Catalog, code like:
private EntitySet<shelf_myndr_Previews_CatalogItem> _shelf_myndr_Previews_CatalogItems;
[global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.AssociationAttribute(Name="CatalogItem", Storage="_CatalogItems", ThisKey="Id", OtherKey="CatalogId")]
public EntitySet<CatalogItem> CatalogItems
{
get
{
return this._CatalogItems;
//replace this line with a sproc call that ultimately
//returns the expected type
}
set
{
this._CatalogItems.Assign(value);
//replace this line with a sproc call that ultimately
//does a save operation
}
}
There is nothing stopping you from changing that code to be sproc calls there. It'd be some effort for larger applications and I'd be sure that you be getting the benefit from it that you think you would.
How about loading the child entities using the partial OnLoaded() method in the parent entity? That would allow you to avoid messing with generated code. Of course it would no longer be a lazy load, but it's a simple way to do it.
For example:
public partial class Supplier
{
public List<Product> Products { get; set; }
partial void OnLoaded()
{
// GetProductsBySupplierId is the SP dragged into your dbml designer
Products = dataContext.GetProductsBySupplierId(this.Id).ToList();
}
}
Call your stored procedure this way:
Where GetProductsByCategoryName is the name of your stored procedure.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/08/16/linq-to-sql-part-6-retrieving-data-using-stored-procedures.aspx

LINQ to SQL Table Extensibility Methods

If I have a LINQ to SQL table that has a field called say Alias.
There is then a method stub called OnAliasChanging(string value);
What I want to do is to grab the value, check the database whether the value already exists and then set the value to the already entered value.
So I may be changing my alias from "griegs" to "slappy" and if slappy exists then I want to revert to the already existing value of "griegs".
So I have;
partial void OnaliasChanging(string value)
{
string prevValue = this.alias;
this.Changed = true;
}
When I check the value of prevValue it's always null.
How can I get the current value of a field?
Update
If I implement something like;
partial void OnaliasChanging(string value)
{
if (this.alias != null)
this.alias = "TEST VALUE";
}
it goes into an infinte loop which is unhealthy.
If I include a check to see whether alias already == "TEST VALUE" the infinate loop still remains as the value is always the original value.
Is there a way to do this?
The code snippets you've posted don't lend themselves to any plausible explanation of why you'd end up with an infinite loop. I'm thinking that this.alias might be a property, as opposed to a field as the character casing would imply, but would need to see more. If it is a property, then you are invoking the OnAliasChanging method before the property is ever set; therefore, trying to set it again in the same method will always cause an infinite loop. Normally the way to design this scenario is to either implement a Cancel property in your OnXyzChanging EventArgs derivative, or save the old value in the OnXyzChanging method and subsequently perform the check/rollback in the OnXyzChanged method if you can't use the first (better) option.
Fundamentally, though, what you're trying to do is not very good design in general and goes against the principles of Linq to SQL specifically. A Linq to SQL entity is supposed to be a POCO with no awareness of sibling entities or the underlying database at all. To perform a dupe-check on every property change not only requires access to the DataContext or SqlConnection, but also causes what could technically be called a side-effect (opening up a new database connection and/or silently discarding the property change). This kind of design just screams for mysterious crashes down the road.
In fact, your particular scenario is one of the main reasons why the DataContext class was made extensible in the first place. This type of operation belongs in there. Let's say that the entity here is called User with table Users.
partial class MyDataContext
{
public bool ChangeAlias(Guid userID, string newAlias)
{
User userToChange = Users.FirstOrDefault(u => u.ID == userID);
if ((userToChange == null) || Users.Any(u => u.Alias == newAlias))
{
return false;
}
userToChange.Alias = newAlias;
// Optional - remove if consumer will make additional changes
SubmitChanges();
return true;
}
}
This encapsulates the operation you want to perform, but doesn't prevent consumers from changing the Alias property directly. If you can live with this, I would stop right there - you should still have a UNIQUE constraint in your database itself, so this method can simply be documented and used as a safe way to attempt a name-change without risking a constraint violation later on (although there is always some risk - you can still have a race condition unless you put this all into a transaction or stored procedure).
If you absolutely must limit access to the underlying property, one way to do this is to hide the original property and make a read-only wrapper. In the Linq designer, click on the Alias property, and on the property sheet, change the Access to Internal and the Name to AliasInternal (but don't touch the Source!). Finally, create a partial class for the entity (I would do this in the same file as the MyDataContext partial class) and write a read-only wrapper for the property:
partial class User
{
public string Alias
{
get { return AliasInternal; }
}
}
You'll also have to update the Alias references in our ChangeAlias method to AliasInternal.
Be aware that this may break queries that try to filter/group on the new Alias wrapper (I believe Linq will complain that it can't find a SQL mapping). The property itself will work fine as an accessor, but if you need to perform lookups on the Alias then you will likely need another GetUserByAlias helper method in MyDataContext, one which can perform the "real" query on AliasInternal.
Things start to get a little dicey when you decide you want to mess with the data-access logic of Linq in addition to the domain logic, which is why I recommend above that you just leave the Alias property alone and document its usage appropriately. Linq is designed around optimistic concurrency; typically when you need to enforce a UNIQUE constraint in your application, you wait until the changes are actually saved and then handle the constraint violation if it happens. If you want to do it immediately your task becomes harder, which is the reason for this verbosity and general kludginess.
One more time - I'm recommending against the additional step of creating the read-only wrapper; I've put up some code anyway in case your spec requires it for some reason.
Is it getting hung up because OnaliasChanging is firing during initialization, so your backing field (alias) never gets initialized so it is always null?
Without more context, that's what it sounds like to me.