[Dbix-class] How to use arrays in database

[Jens Thoms Toerring]

Hello,

   sorry if this is a stupid question, but I don't have much
experience with DBIx::Class. I have a table in a database where
some columns are arrays. I have been looking for some time for
a way to access these arrays, idealy in a way that I can query
or set a certain element of the array but haven't be able to
find anything like that.

After some playing around I found a way to get at the array
as a whole by using inflate_column(), i.e. by using

__PACKAGE__->inflate_column( 'array_column',
							 { inflate => \&inflate_string_to_array,
                               deflate => \&deflate_array_to_string } );

where the functions references point to functions that return or
expect an array reference of the values of the array in the column:

sub inflate_string_to_array {
    $_[ 0 ] =~ s/^{(.*)}/($1)/;
    my @arr = eval shift;
    return \@arr;
}

and

sub deflate_array_to_string {
    return '{' . join( ',', @{ $_[ 0 ] } ) . '}';
}

Obviously, that's not a very good solution since it rather
likely depends on the database returning a string (enclosed
in curly braces and with comma separated values) as it does
for PostGreSQL that I use at the moment, but that could be
different for another one.

Is there a better (database-agnostic) way to do this? And is it
even possible to just address single elements in the array via
one of the already available methods? Don't hesitate to point me
to the documentation - I may simply have been too stupid to find
the right place to look for the correct solution.

                             Best regards, Jens
-- 
  \   Jens Thoms Toerring  ________      jt at toerring.de
   \_______________________________      http://toerring.de