NAME

Alzabo::Driver - Alzabo base class for RDBMS drivers

SYNOPSIS

  use Alzabo::Driver;

  my $driver = Alzabo::Driver->new( rdbms => 'MySQL',
                                    schema => $schema );

DESCRIPTION

This is the base class for all Alzabo::Driver modules. To instantiate a driver call this class's "new()" method. See SUBCLASSING Alzabo::Driver for information on how to make a driver for the RDBMS of your choice.

This class throws several, exceptions, one of which, "Alzabo::Exception::Driver", has additional methods not present in other exception classes. See "Alzabo::Exception::Driver METHODS" for a description of these methods.

METHODS

available

Returns a list of names representing the available "Alzabo::Driver" subclasses. Any one of these names would be appropriate as the "rdbms" parameter for the "Alzabo::Driver->new" method.

new

The constructor takes the following parameters:

rdbms => $rdbms_name
The name of the RDBMS being used.
schema => "Alzabo::Schema" object

It returns a new "Alzabo::Driver" object of the appropriate subclass.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Eval"

tables

Returns a list of strings containing the names of the tables in the database. See the "DBI" documentation of the "DBI->tables" method for more details.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

handle ($optional_dbh)

This method takes one optional parameter, a connected DBI handle. If this is given, then this handle is the new handle for the driver.

It returns the active database handle.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Params"

Data Retrieval methods

Some of these methods return lists of data (the "rows", "rows_hashref", and "column" methods). With large result sets, this can use a lot memory as these lists are created in memory before being returned to the caller. To avoid this, it may be desirable to use the functionality provided by the "Alzabo::DriverStatement" class, which allows you to fetch results one row at a time.

These methods all accept the following parameters:

sql => $sql_string
bind => $bind_value or \@bind_values
limit => [ $max, optional $offset ] (optional)
The $offset defaults to 0.

This parameter has no effect for the methods that return only one row. For the others, it causes the drivers to skip $offset rows and then return only $max rows. This is useful if the RDBMS being used does not support "LIMIT" clauses.

rows

Returns an array of array references containing the data requested.

rows_hashref

Returns an array of hash references containing the data requested. The hash reference keys are the columns being selected. All the key names are in uppercase.

one_row

Returns an array or scalar containing the data returned, depending on context.

one_row_hash

Returns a hash containing the data requested. The hash keys are the columns being selected. All the key names are in uppercase.

column

Returns an array containing the values for the first column of each row returned.

do

Use this for non-SELECT SQL statements.

Returns the number of rows affected.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

statement

This methods returns a new "Alzabo::DriverStatement" handle, ready to return data via the "Alzabo::DriverStatement->next()" or "Alzabo::DriverStatement->next_as_hash()" methods.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

rdbms_version

Returns the version string of the database backend currently in use. The form of this string will vary depending on which driver subclass is being used.

quote (@strings)

This methods calls the underlying DBI handles "quote()" method on the array of strings provided, and returns the quoted versions.

quote_identifier (@strings)

This methods calls the underlying DBI handles "quote_identifier()" method on the array of strings provided, and returns the quoted versions.

Alzabo::DriverStatement

This class is a wrapper around "DBI"'s statement handles. It finishes automatically as appropriate so the end user does need not worry about doing this.

Use this method in a while loop to fetch all the data from a statement.

Returns an array containing the next row of data for statement or an empty list if no more data is available.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

next_as_hash

For backwards compatibility, this is also available as "next_hash()".

Returns a hash containing the next row of data for statement or an empty list if no more data is available. All the keys of the hash will be lowercased.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

all_rows

If the select for which this statement is cursor was for a single column (or aggregate value), then this method returns an array containing each remaining value from the database.

Otherwise, it returns an array of array references, each one containing a returned row from the database.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

all_rows_hash

Returns an array of hashes, each hash representing a single row returned from the database. The hash keys are all in lowercase.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

execute (@bind_values)

Executes the associated statement handle with the given bound parameters. If the statement handle is still active (it was previously executed and has more data left) then its "finish()" method will be called first.

Throws: "Alzabo::Exception::Driver"

count

Returns the number of rows returned so far.

Alzabo::Exception::Driver METHODS

In addition to the methods inherited from "Exception::Class::Base", objects in this class also contain several methods specific to this subclass.

sql

Returns the SQL statement in use at the time the error occurred, if any.

bind

Returns an array reference contaning the bound parameters for the SQL statement, if any.

SUBCLASSING Alzabo::Driver

To create a subclass of "Alzabo::Driver" for your particular RDBMS is fairly simple. First of all, there must be a "DBD::*" driver for it, as "Alzabo::Driver" is built on top of "DBI".

Here's a sample header to the module using a fictional RDBMS called FooDB:

 package Alzabo::Driver::FooDB;

 use strict;
 use vars qw($VERSION);

 use Alzabo::Driver;

 use DBI;
 use DBD::FooDB;

 use base qw(Alzabo::Driver);

The next step is to implement a "new" method and the methods listed under "Virtual Methods". The "new" method should look a bit like this:

 1:  sub new
 2:  {
 3:      my $proto = shift;
 4:      my $class = ref $proto || $proto;
 5:      my %p = @_;
 6:
 7:      my $self = bless {}, $class;
 8:
 9:      return $self;
 10:  }

The hash %p contains any values passed to the "Alzabo::Driver->new" method by its caller.

Lines 1-7 should probably be copied verbatim into your own "new" method. Line 5 can be deleted if you don't need to look at the parameters.

Look at the included "Alzabo::Driver" subclasses for examples. Feel free to contact me for further help if you get stuck. Please tell me what database you're attempting to implement, what its DBD::* driver is, and include the code you've written so far.

Virtual Methods

The following methods are not implemented in "Alzabo::Driver" itself and must be implemented in a subclass.

Parameters for connect(), create_database(), and drop_database()

user => $db_username
password => $db_pw
host => $hostname
port => $port

All of these default to undef. See the appropriate DBD driver documentation for more details.

After the driver is created, it will have access to its associated schema object in "$self->{schema}".

AUTHOR

Dave Rolsky, <dave@urth.org>