MetaModel

Meta is a DSL that enables to represent, traverse and operate on PHP objects.

Syntax

• Get a specific object by its ID:

Article(1)

MetaModel integrates with Doctrine, but can be connected to anything.

• Get all objects of a type

Article(*)

• Object graph traversing (get all the articles of a category):

Category(1).articles

• Call methods:

// Will call generateExtract() on all articles
Article(*).generateExtract()

• Field filtering (not implemented yet):

Article[author="bob"]

Operators:

UserGroup[ users.contains(User(1)) ]
UserGroup[ users.count() > 0 ]

• Service:

CacheService.flush()

MetaModel integrates with containers, registries, anything…

Integration

MetaModel finds objects in data sources. You can add any data source by implementing the simple interfaces: ObjectManager or Container.

Some libraries are already supported natively:

• Doctrine's Entity Manager: MetaModel\Bridge\Doctrine\EntityManagerBridge

  $metaModel = new MetaModel();
  $metaModel->addObjectManager(new EntityManagerBridge($entityManager));

• PHP-DI container: MetaModel\Bridge\PHPDI\PHPDIBridge

  $metaModel = new MetaModel();
  $metaModel->addContainer(new PHPDIBridge($container));

Add your own by submitting a pull request.

Usages

Those are both ideas and work in progress.

• MetaConsole: Simplified Model/DB manipulation from console

Instead of using phpMyAdmin, or building an admin interface, you can manipulate the DB with high level object queries.

• Advanced replacement for PropertyAccess, e.g. to build forms, templates (Twig?)

• Simplified object queries (from database)

• Paths for anything meta on your model: logs, AOP, ACL (e.g. "User(1) can edit Category(12).articles")

Projects using MetaModel:

• MetaConsole
• Xport