oracular (3) DBIx::Class::Manual::Glossary.3pm.gz

NAME

       DBIx::Class::Manual::Glossary - Clarification of terms used.

INTRODUCTION

       This document lists various terms used in DBIx::Class and attempts to explain them.

DBIx::Class TERMS

   DB schema
       Refers to a single physical schema within an RDBMS. Synonymous with the terms 'database', for MySQL; and
       'schema', for most other RDBMS(s).

       In other words, it's the 'xyz' _thing_ you're connecting to when using any of the following DSN(s):

         dbi:DriverName:xyz@hostname:port
         dbi:DriverName:database=xyz;host=hostname;port=port

   Inflation
       The act of turning database row data into objects in language-space. DBIx::Class result classes can be
       set up to inflate your data into perl objects which more usefully represent their contents. For example:
       DBIx::Class::InflateColumn::DateTime for datetime or timestamp column data.

       See also DBIx::Class::InflateColumn.

   Deflation
       The opposite of "Inflation". Existing perl objects that represent column values can be passed to
       DBIx::Class methods to store into the database. For example a DateTime object can be automatically
       deflated into a datetime string for insertion.

       See DBIx::Class::InflateColumn and other modules in that namespace.

   ORM
       Object-relational mapping, or Object-relationship modelling. Either way it's a method of mapping the
       contents of database tables (rows), to objects in programming-language-space. DBIx::Class is an ORM.

   Relationship
       In DBIx::Class a relationship defines the connection between exactly two tables. The relationship
       condition lists the columns in each table that contain the same values. It is used to output an SQL JOIN
       condition between the tables.

   Relationship bridge
       A relationship bridge, such as "many_to_many" defines an accessor to retrieve row contents across
       multiple relationships.

       The difference between a bridge and a relationship is, that the bridge cannot be used to "join" tables in
       a "search", instead its component relationships must be used.

   Schema
       A Schema object represents your entire table collection, plus the connection to the database. You can
       create one or more schema objects, connected to various databases, with various users, using the same set
       of table "Result Class" definitions.

       At least one DBIx::Class::Schema class is needed per database.

   Result Class
       A Result class defines both a source of data (usually one per table), and the methods that will be
       available in the "Result" objects created using that source.

       One Result class is needed per data source (table, view, query) used in your application, they should
       inherit from DBIx::Class::Core.

       See also: DBIx::Class::Manual::ResultClass

   ResultSource
       ResultSource objects represent the source of your data, these are sometimes (incorrectly) called table
       objects.

       ResultSources do not need to be directly created, a ResultSource instance is created for each "Result
       Class" in your "Schema", by the proxied methods "table" and "add_columns".

       See also: "METHODS" in DBIx::Class::ResultSource

   ResultSet
       This is an object representing a set of conditions to filter data. It can either be an entire table, or
       the results of a query. The actual data is not held in the ResultSet, it is only a description of how to
       fetch the data.

       See also: "METHODS" in DBIx::Class::ResultSet

   Result
       Result objects contain your actual data. They are returned from ResultSet objects.  These are sometimes
       (incorrectly) called row objects, including older versions of the DBIC documentation.

       See also: DBIx::Class::Manual::ResultClass

   Row
       See Result.

   Object
       See Result.

   Record
       See Result.

   prefetch
       Similar to a join, except the related result objects are fetched and cached for future use, instead of
       used directly from the ResultSet.  This allows you to jump to different relationships within a Result
       without worrying about generating a ton of extra SELECT statements.

SQL TERMS

   CRUD
       Create, Read, Update, Delete.  A general concept of something that can do all four operations (INSERT,
       SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE), usually at a row-level.

   Join
       This is an SQL keyword, it is used to link multiple tables in one SQL statement. This enables us to fetch
       data from more than one table at once, or filter data based on content in another table, without having
       to issue multiple SQL queries.

   Normalisation
       A normalised database is a sane database. Each table contains only data belonging to one concept, related
       tables refer to the key field or fields of each other. Some links to webpages about normalisation can be
       found in the FAQ.

   Related data
       In SQL, related data actually refers to data that are normalised into the same table. (Yes. DBIC does
       mis-use this term.)

FURTHER QUESTIONS?

       Check the list of additional DBIC resources.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This module is free software copyright by the DBIx::Class (DBIC) authors. You can redistribute it and/or
       modify it under the same terms as the DBIx::Class library.