[Dbix-class] This feels odd...

[Matt S Trout]

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:00:05PM +0000, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
> Given a pair of classes with a belongs_to relationship - say:-
> 
> package Parent
> __PACKAGE__->add_columns(qw/id/);
> __PACKAGE__->set_primary_key('id');
> 
> package Child
> __PACKAGE__->add_columns(qw/id parent/);
> __PACKAGE__->set_primary_key('id');
> __PACKAGE__->belongs_to(parent => 'Parent');
> 
> 
> it seems odd to me that given an instance:-
>  $parent = Parent->find(1);
> 
> that this works:-
>  $child = Child->create(parent => $parent);
> 
> but to find all the children with a parent I have to do
>  $children = Child->search(parent => $parent->id)
> 
> ie add an explicit id reference on the end.
> 
> I know I could define a children has_many relationship within Parent to
> get this stuff out, but in more complex scenarios you end up with an
> awful lot of them defined....

This works in Class::DBI because of the default stringify-to-PK. Trouble is
this lets you in for being shocked when you have a multi-PK object instead.

DBIC should be smarter here, but I can't think of a good way to be smart
without potentially producing far more confusing behaviour in edge cases.
Any suggestions?

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