SYNOPSIS
Root class for all objects in MappedQuery toolkit
DESCRIPTION
Root object for toolkit and all derived subclasses.
All objects in the MappedQuery structure are designed to
be persisted in a database. Here database is a more broad
term and can be considered any object persistance systems.
Currently the toolkit works with SQL based systems but
object databases or custom storage engines are possible.
Provides base common methods used by all objects.
LICENSE
* Software License Agreement (BSD License)
* MappedQueryDB [MQdb] toolkit
* copyright (c) 2006-2009 Jessica Severin
* All rights reserved.
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* * Neither the name of Jessica Severin nor the
* names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
* derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
*
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APPENDIX
The rest of the documentation details each of the object methods.
Internal methods are usually preceded with a _
new
Description: instance creation method
Returntype : instance of this Class (subclass)
Exceptions : none
init
Description: initialization method which subclasses can extend
Returntype : $self
Exceptions : subclass dependent
copy
Description: Shallow copy which copies all base attributes of object
to new instance of same class
Returntype : same as calling instance
Exceptions : subclass dependent
class
Description: fixed string symbol for this class. Must be implemented
for each subclass and each subclass within toolkit
should return a unique name. used by global methods.
Returntype : string
Exceptions : error if subclass does not redefine
database
Description: the MQdb::Database where this object is permanently persisted to.
Here database is any object persistance system.
Returntype : MQdb::Database
Exceptions : die if invalid setter value type is provided
primary_id
Description: the unique identifier for this object within database.
Returntype : scalar or UNDEF
Exceptions : none
id
Description: the unique identifier for this object within database.
Returns empty string if not persisted.
Returntype : scalar or ''
Exceptions : none
db_id
Description: the worldwide unique identifier for this object.
A URL-like combination of database, class, and id
Returntype : string or undef if database is not defined
Exceptions : none
display_desc
Description: general purpose debugging method that returns a nice
human readable description of the object instance contents.
Each subclass should implement and return a nice string.
Returntype : string scalar
Exceptions : none
display_info
Description: convenience method which prints the display_desc string
with a carriage return to STDOUT. useful for debugging.
Returntype : none
Exceptions : none
xml
Description: every object in system should be persistable in XML format.
returns an XML description of the object and all child objects.
Each subclass must implement and return a proper XML string.
Best if one implements xml_start() and xml_end() and use here.
Returntype : string scalar
Exceptions : none
Default : default is a simple xml_start + xml_end
xml_start
Description: every object in system should be persistable in XML format.
returns an XML description of the object and all child objects.
Each subclass should OVERRIDE this method and return a proper XML string.
xml_start is the primary XML start tag
Example : return sprintf("<feature id='%d' name='%d' ..... >", $id, $name....);
Returntype : string scalar
Exceptions : none
xml_end
Description: every object in system should be persistable in XML format.
returns an XML description of the object and all child objects.
Each subclass should OVERRIDE this method and return a proper XML string.
xml_end is the primary XML end tag
Example : return "</feature>";
Returntype : string scalar
Exceptions : none
simple_xml
Description: short hand for xml_start() . xml_end()
Can be used when only the primary XML start tag and attributes are needed
No need to override if xml_start() and xml_end() are implemented
Returntype : string scalar
Exceptions : none
