Defining An Entity

To get started with Quick, you need an entity. You start by extending quick.models.BaseEntity.

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

That's all that is needed to get started with Quick. There are a few defaults of Quick worth mentioning here.

You can generate Quick entities from CommandBox! Install quick-commands and use quick entity create to get started!

Tables

We don't need to tell Quick what table name to use for our entity. By default, Quick uses the pluralized, snake_cased name of the component for the table name. That means for our User entity Quick will assume the table name is users. For an entity with multiple words like PasswordResetToken the default table would be password_reset_tokens. You can override this by specifying a table metadata attribute on the component.

// User.cfc
component table="t_users" extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {}

Inheritance

For more information on using inheritance and child tables in your relational database model, see Subclass Entities.

Primary Key

By default, Quick assumes a primary key of id. The name of this key can be configured by setting variables._key in your component.

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

    variables._key = "user_id";

}

Key Types

Quick also assumes a key type that is auto-incrementing. If you would like a different key type, override thekeyType function and return the desired key type from that function.

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

    function keyType() {
        return variables._wirebox.getInstance( "UUIDKeyType@quick" );
    }

}

Quick ships with the following key types:

• AutoIncrementingKeyType

• NullKeyType

• ReturningKeyType

• UUIDKeyType

• RowIDKeyType

keyType can be any component that adheres to the keyType interface, so feel free to create your own and distribute them via ForgeBox.

interface displayname="KeyType" {

    /**
    * Called to handle any tasks before inserting into the database.
    * Recieves the entity as the only argument.
    */
    public void function preInsert( required entity );

    /**
    * Called to handle any tasks after inserting into the database.
    * Recieves the entity and the queryExecute result as arguments.
    */
    public void function postInsert( required entity, required struct result );

}

Compound Keys

Quick also supports compound or composite keys as a primary key. Define your variables._key as an array of the composite keys:

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

    property name="fieldID";
    property name="clientID";
    property name="fieldName";

    variables._key = [ "fieldID", "clientID" ];
    
    function keyType() {
        return variables._wirebox.getInstance( "NullKeyType@quick" );
    }

}

Note that your chosen keyType will need to be able to handle composite keys.

Attributes

You specify what attributes are retrieved by adding properties to your component.

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

    property name="id";
    property name="username";
    property name="email";

}

Now, only the id, username, and email attributes will be retrieved.

Make sure to include the primary key (id by default) as a property.

Persistent

To prevent Quick from mapping a property to a database column add the persistent="false" attribute to the property. This is needed mostly when using dependency injection.

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

    property name="bcrypt" inject="@BCrypt" persistent="false";

    property name="id";
    property name="username";
    property name="email";

}

Column

If the column name in your table is not the column name you wish to use in Quick, you can specify the column name using the column metadata attribute. The attribute will be available using the name of the attribute.

component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    property name="id";
    property name="username" column="user_name";
    property name="countryId" column="FK_country_id";

}

Null Values

To work around CFML's lack of null, you can use the nullValue and convertToNull attributes.

nullValue defines the value that is considered null for a attribute. By default it is an empty string. ("")

convertToNull is a flag that, when false, will not try to insert null in to the database. By default this flag is true.

component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    property name="id";
    property name="number" convertToNull="false";
    property name="title" nullValue="REALLY_NULL";

}

Read Only

The readOnly attribute will prevent setters, updates, and inserts to a attribute when set to true.

component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    property name="id";
    property name="createdDate" readonly="true";

}

SQL Type

In some cases you will need to specify an exact SQL type for your attribute. Any value set for the sqltype attribute will be used when inserting or updating the attribute in the database. It will also be used when you use the attribute in a where constraint.

component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    property name="id";
    property name="number" sqltype="cf_sql_varchar";

}

Virtual

Attributes can be marked as virtual, meaning that they are not read from or persisted to the database. They can still be interacted with using getters and setters and will appear in an entity's memento.

If you are using generated accessors it is recommended to set getter="false" and setter="false" on the virtual attribute so Quick's internal code can act on the virtual attribute.

Defining an attribute as virtual goes hand in hand with declaring a custom cast. (See below.)

Casts

The casts attribute allows you to use a value in your CFML code as a certain type while being a different type in the database. A common example of this is a boolean which is usually represented as a BIT in the database.

Two casters ship with Quick: BooleanCast@quick and JsonCast@quick. You can add them using those mappings to any applicable columns.

Custom Casts

The casts attribute must point to a WireBox mapping that resolves to a component that implements the quick.models.Casts.CastsAttribute interface. (The implements keyword is optional.) This component defines how to get a value from the database in to the casted value and how to set a casted value back to the database. Below is an example of the built-in BooleanCast, which comes bundled with Quick.

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

    property name="id";
    property name="active" casts="BooleanCast@quick";

}

// BooleanCast.cfc
component implements="CastsAttribute" {

    /**
     * Casts the given value from the database to the target cast type.
     *
     * @entity      The entity with the attribute being casted.
     * @key         The attribute alias name.
     * @value       The value of the attribute.
     *
     * @return      The casted attribute.
     */
    public any function get(
        required any entity,
        required string key,
        any value
    ) {
        return isNull( arguments.value ) ? false : booleanFormat( arguments.value );
    }

    /**
     * Returns the value to assign to the key before saving to the database.
     *
     * @entity      The entity with the attribute being casted.
     * @key         The attribute alias name.
     * @value       The value of the attribute.
     *
     * @return      The value to save to the database. A struct of values
     *              can be returned if the cast value affects multiple attributes.
     */
    public any function set(
        required any entity,
        required string key,
        any value
    ) {
        return arguments.value ? 1 : 0;
    }

}

Casted values are lazily loaded and cached for the lifecycle of the component. Only cast values that have been loaded will have set called on them when persisting to the database.

Casts can be composed of multiple fields as well. Take this Address value object, for example:

// Address.cfc
component accessors="true" {

    property name="streetOne";
    property name="streetTwo";
    property name="city";
    property name="state";
    property name="zip";

    function fullStreet() {
        var street = [ getStreetOne(), getStreetTwo() ];
        return street.filter( function( part ) {
            return !isNull( part ) && part != "";
        } ).toList( chr( 10 ) );
    }

    function formatted() {
        return fullStreet() & chr( 10 ) & "#getCity()#, #getState()# #getZip()#";
    }

}

This component is not a Quick entity. Instead it represents a combination of fields stored on our User entity:

component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    property name="id";
    property name="username";
    property name="firstName" column="first_name";
    property name="lastName" column="last_name";
    property name="password";

    property name="address"
        casts="AddressCast"
        virtual="true"
        getter="false"
        setter="false";
    property name="streetOne";
    property name="streetTwo";
    property name="city";
    property name="state";
    property name="zip";

}

Noticed that the casted address is neither persistent nor does it have a getter or setter created for it.

The last piece of the puzzle is our AddressCast component that handles casting the value to and from the native database values:

component implements="quick.models.Casts.CastsAttribute" {

    property name="wirebox" inject="wirebox";

    /**
     * Casts the given value from the database to the target cast type.
     *
     * @entity      The entity with the attribute being casted.
     * @key         The attribute alias name.
     * @value       The value of the attribute.
     * @attributes  The struct of attributes for the entity.
     *
     * @return      The casted attribute.
     */
    public any function get(
        required any entity,
        required string key,
        any value
    ) {
        return wirebox.getInstance( dsl = "Address" )
            .setStreetOne( entity.retrieveAttribute( "streetOne" ) )
            .setStreetTwo( entity.retrieveAttribute( "streetTwo" ) )
            .setCity( entity.retrieveAttribute( "city" ) )
            .setState( entity.retrieveAttribute( "state" ) )
            .setZip( entity.retrieveAttribute( "zip" ) );
    }

    /**
     * Returns the value to assign to the key before saving to the database.
     *
     * @entity      The entity with the attribute being casted.
     * @key         The attribute alias name.
     * @value       The value of the attribute.
     * @attributes  The struct of attributes for the entity.
     *
     * @return      The value to save to the database. A struct of values
     *              can be returned if the cast value affects multiple attributes.
     */
    public any function set(
        required any entity,
        required string key,
        any value
    ) {
        return {
            "streetOne": arguments.value.getStreetOne(),
            "streetTwo": arguments.value.getStreetTwo(),
            "city": arguments.value.getCity(),
            "state": arguments.value.getState(),
            "zip": arguments.value.getZip()
        };
    }

}

You can see that returning a struct of values from the set function assigns multiple attributes from a single cast.

Insert & Update

You can prevent inserting and updating a property by setting the insert or update attribute to false.

component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" accessors="true" {

    property name="id";
    property name="email" column="email" update="false" insert="true";

}

Formula, Computed, or Subselect properties

Quick handles formula, computed, or subselect properties using query scopes and the addSubselect helper method. Check out the docs in query scopes to learn more.

Multiple datasource support

Quick uses a default datasource and default grammar, as described here. If you are using multiple datasources you can override default datasource by specifying a datasource metadata attribute on the component. If your extra datasource has a different grammar you can override your grammar as well by specifying a grammar attribute.

// User.cfc
component
    datasource="myOtherDatasource"
    grammar="PostgresGrammar@qb"
    extends="quick.models.BaseEntity"
    accessors="true"
{
    // ....
}

At the time of writing Valid grammar options are: MySQLGrammar@qb, PostgresGrammar@qb, SqlServerGrammar@qb and OracleGrammar@qb. Please check the qb docs for additional options.

Comparing Entities

You can compare entities using the isSameAs and isNotSameAs methods. Each method takes another entity and returns true if the two objects represent the same entity.

var userOne = getInstance( "User" ).findOrFail( 1 );
var userTwo = getInstance( "User" ).findOrFail( 1 );

userOne.isSameAs( userTwo ); // true
userOne.isNotSameAs( userTwo ); // false