[Catalyst] Constants that refer to rows in a lookup table.

[Bill Moseley]

This is suppose to be an ORM-neutral question.

I often use lookup tables in the database, even for things like, say,
cart_status:

    create table cart_status (
        id      SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
        name    text NOT NULL,
        active  boolean NOT NULL DEFAULT TRUE
    );

    -- trust the sequence, Luke
    insert into cart_status (name) values ('Pending');
    insert into cart_status (name) values ('Completed');

Then things like this are nice:

    [% cart.cart_status.name %]

And can do this:

    update cart_status set name = 'Finished' where name = 'Completed';

And add new lookup options:

    insert into cart_status (name) values ('Orphaned');


but this is not so nice:

    $cart_class->search( cart_status => 1 );


So, what have you found that works nicely?

    use MyApp::Const qw/ cart_pending /;  # potentially long list
    cart_status => cart_pending  # runtime checking

    use MyApp::Const qw/ :cart /; # Shorter list :)


    cart_status => MyApp::CONST::pending, # global constants


    # Make it very clear where a constant should be used
    # by adding the constants as methods to the cart namespace

    cart_status => $cart_class->pending_status





-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org