Custom Persistent Models

When to use Custom Models

Pimcore objects are very flexible but shouldn't be used to store all types of data. For example, it doesn't make sense to implement a rating-, comments- or a complex blog system on top of the Pimcore objects. Sometimes people also try to implement quite interesting things just to get a unique object key or to build n to n relationships. This sometimes produces really ugly code with a lot of overhead which could be very slow, hard to refactor, and you will have a lot of pain if you have to merge multiple installations.

Pimcore provides 2 possible ways of working with custom entities namely Doctrine ORM and Pimcore Dao.

Option 1: Use Doctrine ORM

Pimcore comes already with the Doctrine bundle, so you can easily create your own entities. Please check https://symfony.com/doc/current/doctrine.html for more details.

Option 2: Working with Pimcore Data Access Objects (Dao)

This example will show you how you can save a custom model in the database.

Database

As a first step, create the database structure for the model. For this example I'll use a very easy model called vote. It just has an id, a username (just a string) and a score. If you want to write a model for a bundle you have to create the table(s) during the installation.

CREATE TABLE `votes` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `username` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  `score` int(5) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4

Please keep in mind that this is just a generic example, you also could create other and more complex models.

Model

The next step is to implement the model. To make it easy the model is stored into the src/ library. You also could place it into a bundle library.

# src/Model/Vote.php
<?php

namespace App\Model;

use Pimcore\Model\AbstractModel;
use Pimcore\Model\Exception\NotFoundException;

class Vote extends AbstractModel
{
    public ?int $id = null;

    public ?string $username = null;

    public ?int $score = null;

    /**
     * get score by id
     */
    public static function getById(int $id): ?self
    {
        try {
            $obj = new self;
            $obj->getDao()->getById($id);
            return $obj;
        }
        catch (NotFoundException $ex) {
            \Pimcore\Logger::warn("Vote with id $id not found");
        }

        return null;
    }

    public function setScore(?int $score): void
    {
        $this->score = $score;
    }

    public function getScore(): ?int
    {
        return $this->score;
    }

    public function setUsername(?string $username): void
    {
        $this->username = $username;
    }

    public function getUsername(): ?string
    {
        return $this->username;
    }

    public function setId(?int $id): void
    {
        $this->id = $id;
    }

    public function getId(): ?int
    {
        return $this->id;
    }
}

For every field in the database we need a corresponding property and a Setter/Getter. This is not really necessary, it just depends on your DAO, just read on and have a look at the save method in the DAO.

The save and getById methods just call the corresponding DAO methods.

The getDao method looks for the nearest DAO. It just appends Dao to the class name, if the class exists you are ready to use the DAO. If the class doesn't exist, it just continue searching using the next namespace.

Small example: App\Model\Vote looks for App\Model\Vote\Dao, App\Model\Dao, App\Dao.

DAO

Now we are ready to implement the Dao:

#src/Model/Vote/Dao.php
<?php

namespace App\Model\Vote;

use Pimcore\Model\Dao\AbstractDao;
use Pimcore\Model\Exception\NotFoundException;

class Dao extends AbstractDao
{
    protected string $tableName = 'votes';

    /**
     * get vote by id
     *
     * @throws NotFoundException
     */
    public function getById(?int $id = null): void
    {
        if ($id !== null)  {
            $this->model->setId($id);
        }

        $data = $this->db->fetchAssociative('SELECT * FROM '.$this->tableName.' WHERE id = ?', [$this->model->getId()]);

        if (!$data) {
            throw new NotFoundException("Object with the ID " . $this->model->getId() . " doesn't exists");
        }

        $this->assignVariablesToModel($data);
    }

    /**
     * save vote
     */
    public function save(): void
    {
        $vars = get_object_vars($this->model);

        $buffer = [];

        $validColumns = $this->getValidTableColumns($this->tableName);

        if (count($vars)) {
            foreach ($vars as $k => $v) {
                if (!in_array($k, $validColumns)) {
                    continue;
                }

                $getter = "get" . ucfirst($k);

                if (!is_callable([$this->model, $getter])) {
                    continue;
                }

                $value = $this->model->$getter();

                if (is_bool($value)) {
                    $value = (int)$value;
                }

                $buffer[$k] = $value;
            }
        }

        if ($this->model->getId() !== null) {
            $this->db->update($this->tableName, $buffer, ["id" => $this->model->getId()]);
            return;
        }

        $this->db->insert($this->tableName, $buffer);
        $this->model->setId($this->db->lastInsertId());
    }

    /**
     * delete vote
     */
    public function delete(): void
    {
        $this->db->delete($this->tableName, ["id" => $this->model->getId()]);
    }

}

Please keep in mind that this is just a very easy example DAO. Of course, you can do much more complex stuff like implementing joins, save dependencies or whatever you want.

Using the Model

Now you can use your Model in your service-layer.

$vote = new \App\Model\Vote();
$vote->setScore(3);
$vote->setUsername('foobar!'.mt_rand(1, 999));
$vote->save();

Listing

If you need to query the data using a Pimcore entity list, you also need to implement a Listing and Listing\Dao class:

#src/Model/Vote/Listing.php

<?php

namespace App\Model\Vote;

use Pimcore\Model;
use Pimcore\Model\Paginator\PaginateListingInterface;

class Listing extends Model\Listing\AbstractListing implements PaginateListingInterface
{
    /**
     * List of Votes.
     */
    public ?array $data = null;

    public ?string $locale = null;

    /**
     * get total count.
     */
    public function count(): int
    {
        return $this->getTotalCount();
    }

    /**
     * get all items.
     */
    public function getItems(int $offset, int $itemCountPerPage): array
    {
        $this->setOffset($offset);
        $this->setLimit($itemCountPerPage);

        return $this->load();
    }

    /**
     * Get Paginator Adapter.
     *
     * @return $this
     */
    public function getPaginatorAdapter(): static
    {
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Set Locale.
     */
    public function setLocale(?string $locale): void
    {
        $this->locale = $locale;
    }

    /**
     * Get Locale.
     */
    public function getLocale(): ?string
    {
        return $this->locale;
    }

    /**
     * Methods for Iterator.
     */

    /**
     * Rewind.
     */
    public function rewind(): void
    {
        $this->getData();
        reset($this->data);
    }

    /**
     * current.
     */
    public function current(): mixed
    {
        $this->getData();

        return current($this->data);
    }

    /**
     * key.
     */
    public function key(): mixed
    {
        $this->getData();

        return key($this->data);
    }

    /**
     * next.
     */
    public function next(): void
    {
        $this->getData();
        next($this->data);
    }

    /**
     * valid.
     */
    public function valid(): bool
    {
        $this->getData();

        return $this->current() !== false;
    }
}

Listing\Dao

#src/Model/Vote/Listing/Dao.php

<?php

namespace App\Model\Vote\Listing;

use Pimcore\Model\Listing;
use App\Model;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Query\QueryBuilder as DoctrineQueryBuilder;
use Pimcore\Model\Listing\Dao\QueryBuilderHelperTrait;

class Dao extends Listing\Dao\AbstractDao
{
    use QueryBuilderHelperTrait;

    protected string $tableName = 'votes';

    /**
     * Get tableName, either for localized or non-localized data.
     *
     * @throws \Exception
     */
    protected function getTableName(): string
    {
        return $this->tableName;
    }

    public function getQueryBuilder(): DoctrineQueryBuilder
    {
        $queryBuilder = $this->db->createQueryBuilder();
        $field = $this->getTableName().'.id';
        $queryBuilder->select(sprintf('SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS %s as id', $field));
        $queryBuilder->from($this->getTableName());

        $this->applyListingParametersToQueryBuilder($queryBuilder);

        return $queryBuilder;
    }

    /**
     * Loads objects from the database.
     *
     * @return Model\Vote[]
     */
    public function load(): array
    {
        // load id's
        $list = $this->loadIdList();

        $objects = [];
        foreach ($list as $id) {
            if ($object = Model\Vote::getById($id)) {
                $objects[] = $object;
            }
        }

        $this->model->setData($objects);

        return $objects;
    }

    /**
     * Loads a list for the specicifies parameters, returns an array of ids.
     *
     * @return int[]
     * @throws \Exception
     */
    public function loadIdList(): array
    {
        $query = $this->getQueryBuilder();
        $objectIds = $this->db->fetchFirstColumn($query->getSQL(), $query->getParameters(), $query->getParameterTypes());
        $this->totalCount = (int) $this->db->fetchOne('SELECT FOUND_ROWS()');

        return array_map('intval', $objectIds);
    }

    /**
     * Get Count.
     *
     * @throws \Exception
     */
    public function getCount(): int
    {
        if ($this->model->isLoaded()) {
            return count($this->model->getData());
        } else {
            $idList = $this->loadIdList();

            return count($idList);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Get Total Count.
     *
     * @throws \Exception
     */
    public function getTotalCount(): int
    {
        $queryBuilder = $this->getQueryBuilder();
        $this->prepareQueryBuilderForTotalCount($queryBuilder, $this->getTableName() . '.id');

        $totalCount = $this->db->fetchOne($queryBuilder->getSql(), $queryBuilder->getParameters(), $queryBuilder->getParameterTypes());

        return (int) $totalCount;
    }
}

Using the Listing

Now you can use your Listing in your service-layer.

$list = \App\Model\Vote::getList();
$list->setCondition("score > ?", [1]);
$votes = $list->load();