Re: dynamic creation of Class::DBI derived classes

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On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 05:20:55PM -0800, Emile Aben wrote:
> ItemAttribute has a few more columns that are the
> cause of my problem. There is a 'is_reference' column,
> if this is not NULL then the value in 'name' should be
> interpreted as the name of another table that contains
> more information on what possible values there are for
> this attribute. Say there is a ItemAttribute row:
> id   10,
> name Contact,
> is_reference 1
> This would mean the thing stored in ItemData with
> itemattribute 10 is the primary key of the table
> 'Contact' (which might look like: (id, first_name,
> last_name) or something).

If I read this correctly (which I may well not be), you're going down
completely the wrong path to solve this. Rather than creating dynamic
classes, you just want to want to write a Class::DBI::Relationship type
that represents that model.

You could have a look at Class::DBI::Relationship::MightHave and change
it to look up a table dynamically based on the value in a different
column, rather than one it's given at compile time.

If you get stuck, just shout; there are a few people here who have done
things like this that should be able to help. 

Tony