Best practice question.

[omegared]

Best practice question.

I have two classes that reflect two tables in a DDB. They are MEMBER and MEMBER_GROUP. I can call each class independently and make use of functions which accesses the data within their respective tables.

In the DDB, MEMBER_GROUP is really just a bunch of MEMBER.

How does one make a Class MEMBER_GROUP dynamically call several MEMBER

(MEMBER_GROUP) ----------< (MEMBER)

[NogDog]

In order to avoid having to query the DB for each member in the group, I might want to give the Member class a method to populate it directly:

<?php

class Member 
{
   private $data = array(
      'id' => null,
      'name' => null,
      'password' => null // and so forth...
   );

   public function populate($data)
   {
      if(!is_array($data))
      {
         throw new Exception("Not an array");
      }
      foreach($data as $key => $val)
      {
         if(array_key_exists($key, $this->data))
         {
            $this->data[$key] = $val;
         }
         else
         {
            throw new Exception("Invalid key '$key'");
         }
      }
      return true;
   }

   // other methods, including populating via DB query on member ID when preferred . . .
}

class MemberGroup
{
   private $members = array(); // array of Member objects

   private $db; // whatever database interface you want to use

   public function __construct($db)
   {
      $this->db = $db;
   }

   public function populateGroup($groupID)
   {
      $groupID = (int) $groupID;
      $sql = "
SELECT member.* 
FROM member
INNER JOIN member_group ON member.id = member_group.member_id
WHERE member_group.group_id = $groupID
";
      $result = $db->query($sql);
      while($row = $result->fetch_assoc())
      {
         $member[$row['id']] = new Member();
         $member[$row['id']]->populate($row);
      }
   }
}