[Catalyst] More natural access to model?

[Paweł Tęcza]

Dear Catalyst users,

It's my first post here, so I would like to say "Hello" to all of us! :)

I'm writing my first Catalyst application for student registration and I
have the following tables for details about studies at our university:

CREATE TABLE studies (
    id integer NOT NULL,
    unit_id integer,
    status integer,
    limit_soft integer,
    limit_hard integer
);

'id' column is a database study identifier. It's also primary key for
that table. 'unit_id' is an unit identifier of study, 'status' column
says whether registration is open/suspended/closed, 'limit_soft' and
'limit_hard' are for student number limits.

CREATE TABLE study_data (
    study_id integer NOT NULL,
    lang lang NOT NULL,
    name text NOT NULL,
    value text
);

'study_id' column is database study identifier (please look at
studies.id column), 'lang' column points language for (name, value)
pair, for example 'pl', 'en', etc. 'name' column is for name of data,
for example 'name', 'description', 'program', 'email', etc.
('study_id', 'lang', 'name') is a primary key for that table. Finally
'value' column is for data content.

I think it's very simple structure and fully understandable for you,
so it doesn't need more comments. Of course, I can also define
table 'study_data' with many columns, for example 'name', 'description',
'program', 'email', etc. but I think that its simpler structure is
better idea here, because it's more flexible. I can add new type of
data, without changing table definition.

Unfortunately, when I want to get the study details, then I need to use
the code like below:

my $study_name        = '';
my $study_description = '';
my $study_program     = '';
my $study_email       = '';

my @studies = $c->model('DB::Studies')->all;
foreach my $study in (@studies) {
    my $name  = $study.study_datas.name;
    my $value = $study.study_datas.value;

    $study_name        = $value if ($name eq 'name');
    $study_description = $value if ($name eq 'description');
    $study_program     = $value if ($name eq 'program');
    $study_email       = $value if ($name eq 'email');
}

I hope you agree with me that it's not handy way...

So my question is: how can I modify my model to get the study details
in the following, more "natural" way?  Is it possibble at all?

my @studies = $c->model('DB::Studies')->all;
foreach my $study in (@studies) {
    $study_name        = $study.study_datas.name        || '';
    $study_description = $study.study_datas.description || '';
    $study_program     = $study.study_datas.program     || '';
    $study_email       = $study.study_datas.email       || '';
}

My best regards,

Pawel