While CI provides the model class for the developer to expand for object-oriented database CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) validation, and business logic for the defined project database, there's another option that enables automatic model services. In this section, we will discuss Object Relational Mapping (ORM). ORM is a new concept of converting the database scheme definition into an object-oriented database class API. It provides database CRUD services on a given database, so that the minimal code is required, instead of the full model development. More than that, the customized validation on the CRUD operation is enabled as well. Using an ORM plugin may reduce the need to self-develop our own CI models so that only special business logic activities are left to be implemented.
Today, ORM plugins provide predefined validation services, as well as user-defined services to enforce validations on CRUD requests from the application controllers, libraries...