Charcoal Object

Object definition (Content and UserData), behaviors and tools.

Table of content

• How to install
  • Dependencies
• The Charcoal Object
  • Basic classes
    • Content
    • UserData
  • Object behaviors
    • Archivable
    • Categorizable
    • Category
    • Hierarchical
    • Publishable
    • Revisionable
    • Routable
  • Helpers
    • ObjectDraft
    • ObjectRevision
    • ObjectSchedule
• Development
  • Development dependencies
  • Continuous Integration
  • Coding Style
  • Authors
  • Changelog

How to install

The preferred (and only supported) way of installing charcoal-object is with composer:

★ composer require locomotivemtl/charcoal-object

Dependencies

• PHP 5.6+
  • This is the last supported version of PHP.
  • PHP 7 is also supported (meaning green on travis…).

The Charcoal Object

The \Charcoal\Object namespace provides a bunch of basic classes, helpers as well as object behaviors (interfaces + traits).

Basic classes

All charcoal project object classes should extend one of the 2 base classes, \Charcoal\Object\Content, for data created and managed by administrators or \Charcoal\Object\UserData, for data created from clients / users.

Content

The Content base class should be used for all objects which can be “managed”. Typically by an administrator, via the charcoal-admin module. It adds the “active” flag to objects as well as creation and modification informations.

API

• ` setActive($active)`
• active()
• setPosition($position)
• position()
• setCreated($created)
• created()
• setCreatedBy($createdBy)
• createdBy()
• setLastModified($lastModified)
• lastModified()
• setLastModifiedBy($lastModifiedBy)
• lastModifiedBy()

The Content class extends \Charcoal\Model\AbstractModel from the charcoal-core module, which means that it also inherits its API as well as the DescribableInterface (metadata(), setMetadata() and loadMetadata(), amongst others) and the StorableInterface (id(), key(), save(), update(), delete(), load(), loadFrom(), loadFromQuery(), source() and setSource(), amongst others).

The AbstractModel class extends \Charcoal\Config\AbstractEntity which also defines basic data-access methods (setData(), data(), keys(), has(), get(), set(), plus the ArrayAccess, JsonSerializable and Serializable interfaces).

Properties (metadata)

Property	Type	Default	Description
active	boolean	true	…
position	number	null	…
created	date-time	null [1]	…
created_by	string	'' [1]	…
last_modified	date-time	null [2]	…
last_modified_by	string	'' [2]	…

[1] Auto-generated upon save()
[2] Auto-generated upon update()

Default metadata is defined in metadata/charcoal/object/content.json

UserData

The UserData class should be used for all objects that are expected to be entered from the project’s “client” or “end user”.

API

• setIp($ip)
• ip()
• setTs($ts)
• ts()
• setLang($lang)
• lang()

The Content class extends \Charcoal\Model\AbstractModel from the charcoal-core module, which means that it also inherits its API as well as the DescribableInterface (metadata(), setMetadata() and loadMetadata(), amongst others) and the StorableInterface (id(), key(), save(), update(), delete(), load(), loadFrom(), loadFromQuery(), source() and setSource(), amongst others).

The AbstractModel class extends \Charcoal\Config\AbstractEntity which also defines basic data-access methods (setData(), data(), keys(), has(), get(), set(), plus the ArrayAccess, JsonSerializable and Serializable interfaces).

Properties (metadata)

Property	Type	Default	Description
ip	ip	null [1]	…
ts	date-time	null [1]	…
lang	lang	null [1]	…

[1] Auto-generated upon save() and update()

Default metadata is defined in metadata/charcoal/object/user-data.json

Object behaviors

• Archivable
• Categorizable
• Category
• Hierarchical
• Publishable
• Revisionable
• Routable

Archivable

The archivable behavior is not yet documented. It is still under heavy development.

Categorizable

API

• setCategory($category)
• category()
• setCategoryType($type)
• categoryType()

Properties (metadata)

Property	Type	Default	Description
category	object	null	The object’s category.[1]

[1] The category obj_type must be explicitely set in implementation’s metadata.

Default metadata is defined in metadata/charcoal/object/catgorizable-interface.json

Category

API

• setCategoryItemType($type)
• categoryItemType()
• numCategoryItems()
• hasCategoryItems()
• categoryItems()

Properties (metadata)

Property	Type	Default	Description
category_item	string	null	…

Default metadata is defined in metadata/charcoal/object/catgory-interface.json

Hierarchical

API

• hasMaster()
• isTopLevel()
• isLastLevel()
• hierarchyLevel()
• master()
• toplevelMaster()
• hierarchy()
• invertedHierarchy()
• isMasterOf($child)
• recursiveIsMasterOf($child)
• hasChildren()
• numChildren()
• recursiveNumChildren()
• children()
• isChildOf($master)
• recursiveIsChildOf($master)
• hasSiblings()
• numSiblings()
• siblings()
• isSiblingOf($sibling)

Properties (metadata)

Property	Type	Default	Description
master	object	null	The master object (parent in hierarchy).

Default metadata is defined in metadata/charcoal/object/hierarchical-interface.json.

Publishable

• setPublishDate($publishDate)
• publishDate()
• setExpiryDate($expiryDate)
• expiryDate()
• setPublishStatus($status)
• publishStatus()
• isPublished()

Properties (metadata)

Property	Type	Default	Description
publishDate	date-time	null	…
expiryDate	date-time	null	…
publishStatus	string [1]	'draft'	…

Default metadata is defined in metadata/charcoal/object/publishable-interface.json.

Revisionable

Revisionable objects implement \Charcoal\Object\Revision\RevisionableInterface, which can be easily implemented by using \Charcoal\Object\Revision\RevisionableTrait.

Revisionable objects create revisions which logs the changes between an object’s versions, as diffs.

API

• setRevisionEnabled(bool$enabled)
• revisionEnabled()
• revisionObject()
• generateRevision()
• latestRevision()
• revisionNum(integer $revNum)
• allRevisions(callable $callback = null)
• revertToRevision(integer $revNum)

Properties (metadata)

The revisionable behavior does not implement any properties as all logic & data is self-contained in the revisions.

Routable

The routable behavior is not yet documented. It is still under heavy development.

Helpers

ObjectDraft

…

ObjectRevision

Upon every update in storage, a revisionable object creates a new revision (a \Charcoal\Object\ObjectRevision instance) which holds logs the changes (diff) between versions of an object:

Revision properties

Property	Type	Default	Description
target_type	string	null	The object type of the target object.
target_id	string	null	The object idenfiier of the target object.
rev_num	integer	null	Revision number, (auto-generated).
ref_ts	date-time
rev_user	string	null
data_prev	structure
data_obj	structure
data_diff	structure

Revision methods

• createFromObject(RevisionableInterface $obj)
• createDiff(array $dataPrev, array $dataObj)
• lastObjectRevision(RevisionableInterface $obj)
• objectRevisionNum(RevisionableInterface $obj, integer $revNum)

ObjetSchedule

It is possible, (typically from the charcoal admin backend), to create schedule (a \Charcaol\Object\ObjectSchedule instance) which associate a set of changes to be applied automatically to an object:

Schedule properties

Property	Type	Default	Description
target_type	string	null	The object type of the target object.
target_id	string	null	The object idenfiier of the target object.
scheduled_date	date-time	null
data_diff	structure	[]
processed	boolean	false
processed_date

Schedule methods (API)

• process([callable $callback, callable $successCallback,callable $failureCallback])

Scheduled actions should be run with a timely cron job. The charcoal-admin module contains a script to run schedules automatically:

★ ./vendor/bin/charcoal admin/object/process-schedules`

Development

To install the development environment:

★ composer install --prefer-source

To run the scripts (phplint, phpcs and phpunit):

★ composer test

API documentation

• The auto-generated phpDocumentor API documentation is available at https://locomotivemtl.github.io/charcoal-object/docs/master/
• The auto-generated apigen API documentation is available at https://codedoc.pub/locomotivemtl/charcoal-object/master/

Development dependencies

• phpunit/phpunit
• squizlabs/php_codesniffer
• satooshi/php-coveralls

Continuous Integration

Service	Badge	Description
Travis		Runs code sniff check and unit tests. Auto-generates API documentation.
Scrutinizer		Code quality checker. Also validates API documentation quality.
Coveralls		Unit Tests code coverage.
Sensiolabs		Another code quality checker, focused on PHP.

Coding Style

The charcoal-object module follows the Charcoal coding-style:

• PSR-1
• PSR-2
• PSR-4, autoloading is therefore provided by Composer.
• phpDocumentor comments.
• Read the phpcs.xml file for all the details on code style.

Coding style validation / enforcement can be performed with composer phpcs. An auto-fixer is also available with composer phpcbf.

Authors

• Mathieu Ducharme, mat@locomotive.ca
• Chauncey McAskill
• Locomotive Inc.

License

Charcoal is licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.