Better explanation for tables product/product_shop and product_attribute/product_attribute_shop

[mcdado]

Initially posted to: http://forge.prestashop.com/browse/PSCSX-8318

In Gitter chat it was noted that it is an important feature for multi-store shops (sharing product with different features and price). Since this is the case, I guess it would be important to document for third-party module developers how to behave and how to deal with the tables. Also, the tables are present and written to even if multi-store was never enabled.

[kpodemski]

I agree that it should be documented but if you know how it works under the hood it's ok to see ObjectModel.php and all methods within Associate keyword

[mcdado]

Well… the problem is that many third-party module developers don't know all the inner workings of the Core. For example, after years of looking at the Core code, I never noticed those methods or figured out what they do. That's why there is documentation. 😃

[kpodemski]

Maybe. In my opinion ObjectModel, FrontController, Controller, ModuleFrontController, and AdminController are first classes which you should check and analyze. Everything is working on top of these.

[mcdado]

Sure… but the point of technical documentation is to guide the user/developer in the right way. And when I'm facing an issue (for example: why when I update the product table, the change doesn't appear in the store?? oh, it's because there is a product_shop! I didn't know that, plus I'm not using multi-store!) I don't want to go read through 3 or 4 classes and spend a day because of that issue, maybe pulled into other things. It's a rabbit hole. Instead I'd like to have some explanation of non-obvious behaviour. Yes, you could argue that reading the Core is beneficial anyway, but then there is no point of having documentation, IMHO. 😉

And that's why I came here, to point out where I feel that documentation can improve.

[kpodemski]

I suggest to look into 1.6 documentation, there are informations about db schema, how multi-store tables works etc.
http://doc.prestashop.com/display/PS16/Developer+Guide

As from now documentation would be hosted on GitHub it will be much better, that's for sure.

[mcdado]

Yep. I opened this Issue to highlight an area that I find lacking. I was about to open another one about PrestaShopCollection but Safari TP totally collapsed on me, and I lost the unsaved draft… sometimes I forget what it is to run beta software! 😄

[mcdado]

You meant this page?

There is a very brief mention of the issue:

A few details to note about tables:
 - Tables which contain translations must end with the _lang suffix. For instance, ps_product_lang contains all the translations for the ps_product table.
 - Tables which contain the records linking to a specific shop must end with the _shop suffix. For instance, ps_category_shop contains the position of each category depending on the store.

I can assure you that I searched the documentation when I had issues with this particular case (product, product_attribute) but I didn't find this page, I guess because it only lists category_shop. I guess it was bad luck!

[lanokims]

Hello,
Maybe I'm late here.
I am a prestashop developer and I need an indication please.

I develop a module to synchronize part of the products (selected products) from one shop to another. I would like some indication on the concerned tables.

it would be nice if I could find help here.

Thank you.