Objects made out of database rows

Question

Each object represents one row in the database. Example:

admins table

id, first_name, last_name
1, 'John', 'Doe'

$admin object (pseudo)

class admin extends base {
  protected $id;
  protected $first_name;
  protected $last_name;

  public function setter() { }

  public function getter() { }

  /* ETC */
}

This part is really clear to me, I can set, get and save (this function is located in base class) the data.

Now what should I do when I create a table that has multiple rows that are related to another table. Example:

admin_preveleges table

id, admin_id, privilege, value
1, 1, 'read_reports', 1
2, 1, 'delete_news', 1
3, 1, 'delete_users', 1

What would the object look? Would one object contain all 3 rows for our John Doe admin? Or would I create 3 objects for John Doe?

How can I connect these to the admin object?

If I create 3 separate objects and connect them to the $admin object, how could I check if this admin has the privilege do delete users? Would I have to loop through all objects and check if one of them is 'delete_users' and then break the loop?

Or should I forget about making the privilege table an object and just create a handler for it inside $admin object?

Answer 1

Create a new class AdminPrivilege:

class AdminPrivilege extends base {
  protected $id;
  protected $admin_id;
  protected $privlege;
  protected $allowed;

  public function setter() { }

  public function getter() { }

  /* ETC */
}

Then in your controller class make a method called loadAdminPrivilegesByAdminID($adminID). In this method load the privileges for the admin create the AdminPrivilege objects and return them as array and attach the array to your admin object.

class admin extends base {
  protected $id;
  protected $first_name;
  protected $last_name;
  protected $privileges; // NEW to attach the privileges of this admin to himself

  public function setter() { }

  public function getter() { }

  public function setPrivileges(array $privileges) {
    $this->privileges = $privileges;
  }

  public function getPrivileges() { 
    return $this->privileges;
  }

  /* ETC */
}

To check if an admin has a specific privlige is easy. In your controller class make a new method checkPrivilege($adminObj, $privilegeName):

public function checkPrivilege($adminObj, $privilegeName) {
  foreach($adminObj->getPrivileges() as $prv) {
    if($prv->privilege != $privilegeName)
      continue;

    return true;
  }

  return false;
}