[CFCDev] Do Objects Contain Foreign Key IDs or Values?

[Dawson, Michael]

Let's say I have a simple object called Picture.  This picture can be associated to multiple categories such as: "B&W", "Portrait", "Digital", etc.   When modeling the database, I would have a table to store the picture information as well as a related table for the picture categories.  I would assume this to be a "has-a" relation.   When I create an object and init it with data, would I pull in only the foreign key ID (1, 2, 3, etc) or do I pull in the value ("B&W", "Portrait", "Digital") and store with the rest of the picture object properties?   Or, is there really not a need to do this?   I visualize a web-based form that displays picture information.  There are also checkboxes that let me associate one or more categories with each picture.   When I build the form, I query pictureDAO to retrieve the picture information.  I would then pass the picture ID to the pictureCategoryGW and get back a list of IDs for the associated categories.  This leads me to believe I really don't need to init the picture object with the category information, at all.  In this case, the controller (form page) will display it as needed.   The only issue I see, by not putting the category information in the picture object, would be extra database hits to later get that information.   Any suggestions or comments?  Will I ever understand OO?  ;-)   Thanks M!ke ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to cfcdev@cfczone.org with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). CFCDev is supported by New Atlanta, makers of BlueDragon http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/index.cfm An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org