I’ve been pondering a few database related issues lately. There are two main things that bug me right now:

• I am not too happy with the current database code in zen-cart
• The ZenMagick database code is getting at it’s limit right now

In the long term I would like the database code to move towards an existing db layer, for example creole. That would be still pretty low level, but considering the complexity of the current table layout I would prefer something simple and build custom code on top of that.

My vision for the ZenMagick SQL code is to convert that incrementally to:

• Using an existing basic db access framework
• write something smart and custom to generate the SQL with less custom code for each service

I think the second point is actually the more crucial and interesting one

One first step that I have started already would be to clean up the model classes. All methods with actual logic should move somewhere else. Ideally, there would be only get/set methods and even that could be reduced.

The main problem I see right now is that by removing the actual getXXX() and setXXX() methods the phpdoc documentation would suffer. Right now I am undecided what to do. It would be nice to have just a simple model class with 10 lines, no matter how many properties. On the other hand it would mean people would have to start looking at the database tables again in order to find out what a model class actually contains!

One solution would be more code generation based on some meta data. However, that would be something happening during release build, not at the users side (like the core.php stuff).

Any opinions welcome. Some educated guesses as to what zen-cart is up to would be very helpful too!