Collections and models are the bread and butter of everyday Magento development. In this chapter, we will introduce the reader to the Magento ORM system, and we will learn how to work with data collections and the EAV system properly. As most modern systems, Magento implements an object-relational mapping (ORM) system.
Object-relational mapping (ORM, O/RM, and O/R mapping) in computer software is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems in object-oriented programming languages. This creates, in effect, a "virtual object database" that can be used from within the programming language.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
Magento Models
Anatomy of a Magento Data Model
EAV and EAV models
Working with Direct SQL queries
We will also be working with several snippets of code to provide an easy framework to experiment and play around with Magento.