Retrieving Entities

Once you have an entity and its associated database table you can start retrieving data from your database.

Active Record

You start every interaction with Quick with an instance of an entity. The easiest way to do this is using WireBox. getInstance is available in all handlers by default. WireBox can easily be injected in to any other class you need using inject="wirebox".

Quick is backed by qb, a CFML Query Builder. With this in mind, think of retrieving records for your entities like interacting with qb. For example:

var users = getInstance( "User" ).all();

for ( var user in users ) {
    writeOutput( user.getUsername() );
}

In addition to using for you can utilize the each function on arrays. For example:

var users = getInstance( "User" ).all();

prc.users.each( function( user ) {
    writeOutput( user.getUsername() );
});

You can add constraints to the query just the same as you would using qb directly:

var users = getInstance( "User" )
    .where( "active", 1 )
    .orderByDesc( "username" )
    .limit( 10 )
    .get();

Quick Service

A second way to retrieve results is to use a Quick Service. It is similar to a VirtualEntityService from cborm.

The easiest way to create a Quick Service is to inject it using the quickService: dsl:

component {

    property name="userService" inject="quickService:User"

}

If you have a existing Service, and you would like to extend the quickService, you can extend the quick.models.BaseService and then call super.init inside of the service init function passing the name of the entity (for example your User Entity) shown below:

component singleton extends="quick.models.BaseService" {

    function init(){
        super.init( "User" );
    }

}

Any method you can call on an entity can be called on the service. A new entity will be used for all calls to a Quick Service.

var users = userService
    .where( "active", 1 )
    .orderByDesc( "username" )
    .limit( 10 )
    .get();

Aggregates

Calling qb's aggregate methods (count, max, etc.) will return the appropriate value instead of an entity or collection of entities.

existsOrFail

Returns true if any entities exist with the configured query. If no entities exist, it throws an EntityNotFound exception.

var doesUserExist = getInstance( "User" )
    .existsOrFail( rc.userID );

Retrieval Methods

all

Retrieves all the records for an entity in a new collection. Calling all will ignore any non-global constraints on the query.

var users = getInstance( "User" ).all();

get

Executes the configured query, eager loads any specified relations, and returns the entities in a new collection.

var posts = getInstance( "Post" )
    .whereNotNull( "publishedDate" )
    .get();

paginate

Executes the configured query, eager loads any specified relations, and returns the entities in the configured qb pagination struct.

var posts = getInstance( "Post" )
    .whereNotNull( "publishedDate" )
    .paginate( rc.page, rc.maxrows );

// default response example
{
    "results": [ User#1, User#2, ... ],
    "pagination": {
        "totalPages": 2,
        "maxRows": 25,
        "offset": 0,
        "page": 1,
        "totalRecords": 40
    }
}

simplePaginate

Executes the configured query, eager loads any specified relations, and returns the entities in the configured qb simple pagination struct.

var posts = getInstance( "Post" )
    .whereNotNull( "publishedDate" )
    .simplePaginate( rc.page, rc.maxrows );

// default response example
{
    "results": [ User#1, User#2, ... ],
    "pagination": {
        "hasMore": true,
        "maxRows": 25,
        "offset": 0,
        "page": 1
    }
}

first

Executes the configured query and returns the first entity found. If no entity is found, returns null.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .where( "username", rc.username )
    .first();

firstWhere

Adds a basic where clause to the query and returns the first result.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .firstWhere( "username", rc.username );

firstOrFail

Executes the configured query and returns the first entity found. If no entity is found, then an EntityNotFound exception is thrown with the given or default error message.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .where( "username", rc.username )
    .firstOrFail();

firstOrNew

Finds the first matching record or returns an unloaded new entity.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .firstOrNew( { "username": rc.username } );

firstOrCreate

Finds the first matching record or creates a new entity.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .firstOrCreate( { "username": rc.username } );

find

Returns the entity with the id value as the primary key. If no record is found, it returns null instead.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .find( rc.userID );

findOrFail

Returns the entity with the id value as the primary key. If no record is found, it throws an EntityNotFound exception.

var user = getInstance( "User" )
    .findOrFail( rc.userID );

findOrNew

Returns the entity with the id value as the primary key. If no record is found, it returns a new unloaded entity.

var user = getInstance( "User" ).findOrNew(
    9999,
      {
              "firstName" : "doesnt",
              "lastName"  : "exist"
      }
);

findOrCreate

Returns the entity with the id value as the primary key. If no record is found, it returns a newly created entity.

var user = getInstance( "User" ).findOrCreate(
    9999,
      {
        "username"  : "doesntexist",
              "firstName" : "doesnt",
              "lastName"  : "exist",
              "password"  : "secret"
      }
);

newEntity

You will probably not use newEntity very often if you use wirebox getinstance("someQuickEntity") to retrieve an entity, because that will already give you a new entity. If you are using a QuickService you will need this method for creating a new entity

var user = getInstance( "User" )

//or

property name="UserService" inject="quickService:User"; //inject a quick service

var user = UserService.newEntity();

Hydration Methods

Hydration is a term to describe filling an entity with a struct of data and then marking it as loaded, without doing any database queries. For example, this might be useful when hydrating a user from session data instead of doing a query every request.

hydrate

Hyrdates an entity from a struct of data. Hydrating an entity fills the entity and then marks it as loaded.

If the entity's keys are not included in the struct of data, a MissingHydrationKey is thrown.

var user = getInstance( "User" ).hydrate( {
    "id": 4,
    "username": "JaneDoe",
    "email": "jane@example.com",
    "password": "mypass1234"
} );

user.isLoaded(); // true

hydrateAll

Hydrates a new collection of entities from an array of structs.

var users = getInstance( "User" ).hydrateAll( [
    {
        "id": 3,
        "username": "JohnDoe",
        "email": "john@example.com",
        "password": "mypass4321"
    },
    {
        "id": 4,
        "username": "JaneDoe",
        "email": "jane@example.com",
        "password": "mypass1234"
    }
] );

Custom Collections

If you would like collections of entities to be returned as something besides an array, you can override the newCollection method. It receives the array of entities. You can return any custom collection you desire.

newCollection

Returns a new collection of the given entities. It is expected to override this method in your entity if you need to specify a different collection to return. You can also call this method with no arguments to get an empty collection.

// Post.cfc
component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    function newCollection( array entities = [] ) {
        return variables._wirebox.getInstance(
            name = "extras.QuickCollection",
            initArguments = {
                "collection" = arguments.entities
            }
        );
    }

}