Get/Set/Add/Count in OM Classes

OM Classes generated from complex models are very bloated at the moment for several reasons:

For every field:

• get* Method
• set* method

For every referring foreign key:

• get* method
• set* method
• init* method
• add* method
• count* method

In 2.0 we could make more "lightweight objects". There could be two possibilities that need to be discussed:

• overloading the BaseObject via __call().
• IDEA: let all the methods in BaseOMClass, but merge each group (for example count*) to use some method in the BaseObject class. This methods would get their information as parameter - example:

BaseAuthorPeer->countBooks() calls BaseObject->count(table, field, fk)
BaseAuthorPeer->getBooks() calls BaseObject->getFKEntries(table, field, fk)
BaseAuthorPeer->addBook() calls BaseObject->addNMEntry(table, field, fk, baseobject $book)

Advantages of __call()

• mostly lightweight
• more compile speed (but irrelevant with bytecode cache)

Disadvantages of __call()

• no more code inspection in your IDE
• __call(), but at least call_user_func_array is known to be slow at runtime
• no clear `interface' of the class anymore

the middle way

• interface of the class and code inspection would be preserved
• no redundant generated code anymore
• no interceptor method needed

Questions

• __call() and static methods for peer classes?
• making decision what's the best way for getting more lightweight objects