How should I design the interface to a SQL column generator in PHP?

Question

I'm working on a framework in PHP, part of this frameworks job is to write SQL code to generate new MySQL columns.

What is the most elegant way to pass in a bunch of parameters for a column and then turn that into SQL code? As an example here is some YAML I have, that specifies parameters for creating a varchar column:

- type: character
        data-type:
            type: varchar
            length: 255
            decimals: null
            unsigned: null
            zerofill: null
            collate: utf8_unicode_ci
            character-set: utf8
            binary: false
            spatial-type: null
            values: null
        nullify: true
        default: null
        increment: false
        unique: false
        primary: false
        comment: This is a small general text field.
        format: default
        storage: default

My design constraints are as follows:

1. The YAML cannot contain any SQL syntax
2. The PHP code must be as concise as possible.

Answer 1

I recommend you make a class Column that takes, as a constructor argument, an array that can define the various configuration points you want. The ones that don't matter in each particular case you just don't define.

Answer 2

Not totaly related but do you know the Propel project ?

They use xml to explain model but the symfony project (which use propel as a plugin) use yaml.