Hi Basically, I want to build a distributable application, and one of the most important feature is Dynamic configurable profile fields/columns by Admin user (the application customer)
Let say site XXX is about business, so the site owner (Admin) would probably config user profile fields to have first name, last name, company, position etc.. site YYY is about college, so the site owner (Admin) would probably config user profile fields to have first name, last name, school, degree, major etc.. Of course, at anytime, the Admin can add or remove those profile fields, without losing data. However, Propel/Doctrine require you to pre-build the model from given schema with fields ready. HERE ARE MY THOUGHTS SO FAR ---------- using Guard .. Table: User id: profile_id: SOLUTION 1 ----- Table: FieldMap id: name: field name/title (first name, last name etc..) type: field type (char, number, date etc..) etc.. for extra options Example data: 1, First Name, char 2, Last Name, char 3, Year, number ... Table: ProfileValue id: profile_id: ref profile id fieldmap_id: ref FieldMap value: actual value of the field for that profile Example Data: id,profile_id,fieldmap_id,value 1, 1, 1, Jack 2, 1, 2, Lee 3, 1, 3, 1990 4, 2, 1, Danis 5, 2, 2, Bush 6, 2, 3, 1978 etc.. This solution does NOT require you to rebuild the model or anything, so it's cool. HOWEVER, it would create alot of problem and complexity in searching for profiles, like find all profiles start with "B", living in XXX, between year A,B etc.. As well as enforcing the data type for the profile field value, ie distinguish between INT, CHAR, TEXT, DATE etc.. We have to use "BLOB" for it (the column "value" of table ProfileValue) SOLUTION 2 ---------------- Table: FieldMap id: name: field name/title (first name, last name etc..) type: field type (char, number, date etc..) etc.. for extra options Table: Profile id: This would be initial schema, when the application is distributed. Because no profile fields have been config/setup by site owner/Admin yet. So when the Admin config his site by adding/remove fields, it would add entry to FieldMap and alter Profile table columns Let say, Admin want to add "First Name" field to profile, it would do 1) Add record "First Name, char" to "FieldMap" table 2) Add column "first_name" with type "char" to "Profile" table So profile table would be like this Profile: id: first_name: (type char) This solution work very nice for searching and query, however the generated classes do NOT know about the "existent" of first name, last name etc.. because they were not there when the initial application was distribute. So what your thoughts on this? Thanks --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "symfony users" group. To post to this group, send email to symfony-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/symfony-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
