[fw-general] Correct model use to gather data from multiple tables

[Er Galvao Abbott]

Greetings. I have this basic question for quite some time now and it's incredibly hard to find examples that explain this. I guess it's pretty self explanatory, but here we go: If I need to gather data from a database table I create a model, a data gateway and a mapper, and then I just use a method like fetchAll which executes the desired query ('select foo from bar' or something like that). My question is, what if I need to gather data from multiple tables? Let's say I have a users table and a group table. If I need to get details from a user I'd use a method such as find from the user data gateway, but what if I need to pull data from the user and group tables? You know, something like: SELECT u.email, g.name FROM users u, groups g WHERE u.group_id = g.id Of course, I could just "cheat" and create a method in the user data gateway which retrieves everything, but since I'm retrieving data from a table other than the user's wouldn't that be wrong? Hope I've made myself clear. Cheers, Galvao http://www.galvao.eti.br/