[Dbix-class] how to determine column is inflatable?

[Peter Rabbitson]

Carl Franks wrote:
> 2009/1/29 Ash Berlin <ash_cpan at firemirror.com>:
>> On 29 Jan 2009, at 22:03, Carl Franks wrote:
>>
>>> Is it okay to use $result_source->column_info('name')->{_inflate_info}
>>> to test whether a column is inflatable / deflatable?
>>> It seems a bit too reliant on internals, to me.
>>>
>>> Or should there be a has_inflatable_column('name') method?
>>>
>>> (and is that what it should be called? do we really also need a
>>> 'has_deflatable_column' too?)
>>>
>>> If someone makes a call, I'll write up a patch for it.
>>>
>>> Carl
>>>
>> There doesn't seem to be a public way to determine this, and indeed
>> accessing anything starting with an _ indicates badness.
>>
>> First things first - what exactly do you care if a column is inflated or
>> not?
> 
> In HTML-FormFu-Model-DBIC, I can't just use get/set_column(),
> otherwise in/deflators won't get called.
> So I've had to document that people can't name fields after DBIC
> built-in methods such as 'delete', otherwise when we call $row->$name
> it'll trash your db.
> 
> What I'd like to do is allow the use of any name, by doing something like this:
> 
>     $value = $row->result_source->has_inflated_column
>         ? $row->get_inflated_column( $name )
>         : $row->get_column( $name );
> 
>     $row->result_source->has_inflated_column
>         ? $row->set_inflated_column( $name, $value )
>         : $row->set_column( $name, $value );
> 
> I can't just use get/set_inflated_column() for everything, as it
> croaks if there's no in/deflator for a column.

Smells like a misdesign... Shall we fix this or was there a reason to
have it this way?