ppentity

A tiny helper around RedBeanPHP to work with very simple, dynamic entities and lists.

It gives you:

• ppEntity\BasicEntity — create, load, change, and save an entity in a table (bean) named by you.
• ppEntity\List\BasicList — fetch all entities or find by a condition.
• ppEntity\DB\DBClass — minimal DB bootstrap using a .env file.

The library is intentionally small. The public API is demonstrated in the tests and the examples below.

Requirements

• PHP 8.3+
• PDO extension (and the driver for your DB)

Installation

composer require peopleandpixel/ppentity

Autoloading uses PSR-4 (ppEntity\\ → src/).

Configuration (.env)

Connections are configured through environment variables loaded from a .env file in the project root (same folder as src/). The following variables are read by DBClass:

• DB_TYPE — one of: sqlite, mysql, mariadb, postgresql, cubrid

Depending on the type:

SQLite

• DB_PATH — path to the SQLite file (e.g. data/app.sqlite)

MySQL/MariaDB

• DB_HOST — hostname
• DB_PORT — port
• DB_NAME — database name
• DB_USERNAME — user
• DB_PASSWORD — password

PostgreSQL

• DB_HOST — hostname
• DB_NAME — database name
• DB_USERNAME — user
• DB_PASSWORD — password

Cubrid

• DB_HOST — hostname
• DB_NAME — database name
• DB_USERNAME — user
• DB_PASSWORD — password

There is an example file you can copy:

cp .env.example .env
# then adjust values

Quick start

Below mirrors what the tests do. It uses a bean/table named test and two dynamic fields: value1 and value2.

<?php
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use ppEntity\BasicEntity;
use ppEntity\List\BasicList;

// 1) Create a new entity in the table (bean) named "test"
$entity = new BasicEntity('test');

// 2) Assign arbitrary dynamic properties
$entity->value1 = 'String 1';
$entity->value2 = 123; // any scalar works; stored via RedBeanPHP

// 3) Persist
$entity->save();
$id = $entity->id; // the auto-assigned id

// 4) Load the same entity later by id
$loaded = new BasicEntity('test', $id);
// Access the values that were stored
assert($loaded->value1 === 'String 1');
// Note: values come back as strings from the DB (e.g. "123")

Work with multiple objects and lists

// Create a few more rows
$e2 = new BasicEntity('test');
$e2->value1 = 'String 2';
$e2->value2 = 456;
$e2->save();

$e3 = new BasicEntity('test');
$e3->value1 = 'String 3';
$e3->value2 = 789;
$e3->save();

$e4 = new BasicEntity('test');
$e4->value1 = 'Special';
$e4->value2 = 999;
$e4->save();

// Count all rows in bean "test"
$total = BasicList::getAllCount('test'); // 4

// Get all as a list of BasicEntity objects (ordered by RedBean default)
$all = BasicList::getAll('test');
// $all[0]->value1 === 'String 1'
// $all[1]->value1 === 'String 2'
// $all[2]->value1 === 'String 3'
// $all[3]->value1 === 'Special'

// Find by a condition (RedBean WHERE condition syntax)
$gt500 = BasicList::findBy('test', 'value2 > 500');
// count($gt500) === 2
// $gt500[0]->value1 === 'String 3'
// $gt500[1]->value1 === 'Special'

$like = BasicList::findBy('test', 'value1 LIKE "String%"');
// count($like) === 3

How it works (short version)

• BasicEntity is a thin wrapper around a RedBean OODBBean. It:
  • connects via DBClass::connect() in the constructor,
  • dispenses a bean for the given name (table) in lowercase,
  • optionally load($id) to populate dynamic properties,
  • on save(), copies dynamic properties to the bean, stores it (R::store) and sets id.
• Dynamic properties are handled with PHP magic methods: __set, __get, __isset, __unset.
• BasicList offers list operations using RedBean find helpers and returns arrays of BasicEntity instances.
• Connections are closed via DBClass::disconnect() after operations that hit the DB.

Running tests

This project ships PHPUnit tests that double as usage examples.

composer install
composer test
# or
vendor/bin/phpunit

The tests create a temporary SQLite database at tests/data/testdb.sqlite and a local .env during the run, then clean up afterward.

Notes and caveats

• Table names are the lowercase form of the name you pass to BasicEntity/BasicList.
• Values read back from the DB may be strings depending on the driver (e.g., integers may come back as "123"). The tests assert this behavior.
• This library does not try to be an ORM; it’s a minimal helper for simple use cases or quick scripts.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.