This plugin implements Single Table Inheritance (and hopefully will implement Class Table Inheritance in the future) patterns for CakePHP ORM.
CakePHP 4.x
Using composer:
composer require robotusers/cakephp-table-inheritance
For CakePHP 3.x use version 0.4 of the plugin
composer require robotusers/cakephp-table-inheritance:^0.4
For now only STI is supported. Just add a behavior to your tables:
//in ClientsTable:
public function initialize(array $config)
{
$this->addBehavior('Robotusers/TableInheritance.Sti', [
'table' => 'users',
'discriminator' => 'client'
]);
}
//alternative config in AdministratorsTable:
public function initialize(array $config)
{
$this->table('users');
$this->addBehavior('Robotusers/TableInheritance.Sti');
$this->setDiscriminator('admin');
}Now both the ClientsTable and AdministratorsTable will share users db table. A table has to have a discriminator field which will be used to determine which model's record is stored in a row.
You can also configure a list of allowed discriminators. It's useful for example when working with the files. For example:
//in ImagesTable:
public function initialize(array $config)
{
$this->addBehavior('Robotusers/TableInheritance.Sti', [
'table' => 'files',
'discriminatorField' => 'mime',
'acceptedDiscriminators' => [
'image/jpeg',
'image/gif',
'image/png',
'image/tiff'
]
]);
}
//or using wildcards:
public function initialize(array $config)
{
$this->addBehavior('Robotusers/TableInheritance.Sti', [
'table' => 'files',
'discriminatorField' => 'mime',
'acceptedDiscriminators' => [
'image/*'
]
]);
}An ImagesTable will share files db table and match only specified mime types.
You can also add accepted discriminators on runtime:
$table->addAcceptedDiscriminator('image/bmp');StiBehavior supports following options:
discriminatorField- db table field used to discriminate models, 'discriminator' by defaultdiscriminator- default discriminator value,$table->alias()by defaulttable- db table to share, use this option or$table->table()method.checkRules-trueby default. Allows to enable/disable build-in rule check for a discriminator value.acceptedDiscriminators- a list of accepted discriminators.
This plugin also allows to configure parent Table in order to create and hydrate entities based on child tables.
//in UsersTable:
public function initialize(array $config)
{
$this->addBehavior('Robotusers/TableInheritance.StiParent', [
'tableMap' => [
'Administrators' => [
'admin',
'administrator'
],
'Clients' => 'client'
]
]);
}tableMap option accepts an array mapping table registry aliases to discriminator field values.
You can also map discriminator values to specified table objects using discriminatorMap option:
//in UsersTable:
public function initialize(array $config)
{
$this->addBehavior('Robotusers/TableInheritance.StiParent', [
'discriminatorMap' => [
'admin' => $this->tableLocator()->get('Administrators'),
'client' => $this->tableLocator()->get('Clients')
]
]);
}This behavior also provides newStiEntity() method which will proxy newEntity() to one of the configured tables based on a discriminator value.
$data = [
'name' => 'super-admin',
'discriminator' => 'admin'
];
$admin = $this->Users->newStiEntity($data); //will call AdministratorsTable::newEntity() and return an Administrator entity instance.Afterwards you can get a STI table using stiTable() method and handle entity using its source Table object.
$table = $this->Users->stiTable($admin);
$table->save($admin); //it will save an entity using AdministratorsTableYou can also directly detect STI table from data array:
$data = [
'name' => 'super-admin',
'discriminator' => 'admin'
];
$table = $this->Users->stiTable($data);
$admin = $table->newEntity($data);
$table->save($admin);