Model Properties are dynamic

Question

I come from a .net background so the empty classes (models) that I'm seeing in Lithium is unsettling.
In .net, I don't have a property unless I do something like:

public class MyClass()
   public property myProp as string
end class

and then I set or get the property like so:

dim aClass as myClass
aClass.myProp = "some string"
dim myString as String = aClass.myProp

What I'm seeing in Lithium are dynamic objects a la javascript.
I can declare an arbitrary object and add properties as I go. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I just want to know:

1. If this is normal for PHP or normal for Lithium, and
2. If I add properties (so I can get code completion in eclipse), will it hurt the ORM features of Lithium?

Answer 1

Lithium is fairly advanced and takes advantage of some PHP features that many frameworks do not. You can add properties directly to objects in PHP, but, when using a framework, you want to look at what the best practices are and how it will impact your application.

In Lithium, MyModel::create() or MyModel::find() return entity objects or collections of entity objects that represent database records or documents.

Entity properties are stored in the protected $_updated and $_data arrays and accessed via __get and __set methods.

So, when you reference $myModel->title, you're getting/setting $myModel->_updated['title'].

Then, when you call $myModel->save(), the data in $_updated is saved to the database record or document.

See https://github.com/UnionOfRAD/lithium/blob/master/data/Entity.php for more details.