Day 17: nice schema definition for DBIx::Class

This post is for DBIx::Class users only. :)

So, if you are using another ORM, you have to wait for tomorrow ...

As a side note: I was using Rose::DB::Object (RDBO) for years. But I'm slowly changing to DBIx::Class (DBIC). I really liked RDBO and it is a solid ORM. But the community strongly prefers DBIC and I wanted to gain experience with it.

Usually a schema definition looks like this:

package MyDB::Schema::Result::Artist;
use base qw/DBIx::Class::Core/;

use strict;
use warnings;

__PACKAGE__->table('artist');
__PACKAGE__->add_columns(qw/id name/);
__PACKAGE__->set_primary_key('id');
__PACKAGE__->has_many(cds => 'MyDB::Schema::Result::CD');

1;

With DBIx::Class::Candy it changes to:

package MyDB::Schema::Result::Artist;
use DBIx::Class::Candy;

table 'artist';
column id   => {data_type => 'int', is_auto_increment => 1};
column name => {data_type => 'varchar', size => 25};
primary_key 'id';

has_many cds => 'MyDB::Schema::Result::CD', 'id';

1;

I did not like all these __PACKAGE__ calls. This "Moose inspired" syntax is much nicer in my opinion.

Links:

• DBIx::Class (distribution)
• Rose::DB::Object (distribution)
• DBIx::Class::Candy (distribution)
• DBIx::Class::Candy (documentation)
• Announcing DBIx::Class::Candy (fREW Schmidt)