NAME

DBIx::Class::InflateColumn - Automatically create objects from column data

SYNOPSIS

# In your table classes
__PACKAGE__->inflate_column('column_name', {
    inflate => sub { ... },
    deflate => sub { ... },
});

DESCRIPTION

This component translates column data into objects, i.e. "inflating" the column data. It also "deflates" objects into an appropriate format for the database.

It can be used, for example, to automatically convert to and from DateTime objects for your date and time fields.

METHODS

inflate_column

Instruct DBIx::Class to inflate the given column.

In addition to the column name, you must provide inflate and deflate methods. The inflate method is called when you access the field, while the deflate method is called when the field needs to used by the database.

For example, if you have a table events with a timestamp field named insert_time, you could inflate the column in the corresponding table class using something like:

__PACKAGE__->inflate_column('insert_time', {
    inflate => sub { DateTime::Format::Pg->parse_datetime(shift); },
    deflate => sub { DateTime::Format::Pg->format_datetime(shift); },
});

(Replace DateTime::Format::Pg with the appropriate module for your database, or consider DateTime::Format::DBI.)

The coderefs you set for inflate and deflate are called with two parameters, the first is the value of the column to be inflated/deflated, the second is the row object itself. Thus you can call ->result_source->schema->storage->dbh on it, to feed to DateTime::Format::DBI.

In this example, calls to an event's insert_time accessor return a DateTime object. This DateTime object is later "deflated" when used in the database layer.

SEE ALSO

DBIx::Class::Core - This component is loaded as part of the "core" DBIx::Class components; generally there is no need to load it directly

AUTHOR

Matt S. Trout <mst@shadowcatsystems.co.uk>

CONTRIBUTORS

Daniel Westermann-Clark <danieltwc@cpan.org> (documentation)

LICENSE

You may distribute this code under the same terms as Perl itself.