DataStore
The DataStore class is a container to access and store simple collections without the need for a database. The data is saved in JSON format in a text file.
A collection is a group of resources. Collections are similar to database tables. A resource is a group of related fields, similar to the rows in a table.
DataStore uses an associative array structure to hold the data.
The schema is defined in PHP using an associative array structure and defines each collection's data fields, relationships between collections, and resources.
The DataStore class is a container for the schema and contains methods for accessing the data. The data schema is passed into the class constructor.
Each collection has two properties: schema - contains a list of the collection's data fieldnames, and optional keys for relationships to other collections. The names of related collections are stored as a list in each key.
resources - associative array of each resource item, keyed by a unique generated index.
The collection data will be serialized as JSON and stored in a text file.
Basic data structure (described using JSON):
{
"collectionName": {
"schema": {
"fields": ["fieldName1","fieldName2","fieldName3"...],
"has": ["collectionName",...], // optional
"belongsTo": ["collectionName",...], // optional
"HABTM": ["collectionName",...] // optional
},
"resources": {
"primaryKey": {
"fieldName1": "value",
"fieldName2": "value",
"fieldName4": "value",
...
}
}
},
...
}
Collection relationships
The terms 'has' and 'belongsTo' represent one-to-many and many-to-one relationships respectively. These optional keys in the schema contain arrays of collections related to the current collection.
If the 'belongsTo' key is set, there must be an entry in the fields array matching the collection name ending in '.id' listed in the 'belongsTo' which represents the foreign key that contains the primary key of the related resource in the other collection. This value can be overridden in settings.
HABTM (has-and-belongs-to-many) relationships use link tables in databases to connect two tables together.
HABTM relationships are not yet implemented in DataStore.