The Object package provides abstract objects, behaviours, and tools for building user-facing Web sites.

composer require charcoal/object

The package provides a bunch of basic classes, helpers as well as object behaviors (interfaces + traits).

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.

The Content base class should be used for all objects which can be "managed". Typically by an administrator, via the charcoal/admin package. 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)

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

API

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

Properties (metadata)

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

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

API

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

Properties (metadata)

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

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)

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

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

Properties (metadata)

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

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.

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

…

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

Revision methods

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

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

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`

• Contributing
• Report issues and send pull requests in the main Charcoal repository