<Warn priority="low"> 
  <warning class="Off Topic"/> 
  <warning class="Long"/> 
</Warn> 

I'm not exactly sure where to send this, but here it goes:
Has anyone completed/started an abstract database class at all?  I've written some for very 
specific applications, but I want a more general-purpose tool.  I'm about to start developme
nt on one, but wanted to get feedback from the world-at-large to see what features you would
 want first (or if anyone has already started one).

The classes I've created/used before, are like:
my $order = new Order( oid =>  '1234567' );
$order-> fetch();
foreach my $order_line ( $order-> Lines ) {
  print $order_line-> Description, $order_line->Price;
}

I'd like to interact with a database, update data, save data, etc.  without having to actual
ly call any SQL code.  And, if I modify my database schema, I'd like the classes to automati
cally adapt.

The way I've done this before, is create a series of classes with AUTOLOAD subs in them whic
h intercept the name of the method being called, and then updating that specific field in th
e record.

How I"d like to implement it would be to define an XML file with represents the way my data 
is structured in the database.  This way, the objects can determine when to cache data, and 
when to commit its values to the database for maximum efficiency.  An example could be:
<schema name="mp3_site" database="DB0" database_vendor="Oracle" database_version="8.1.5" use
rname="nachbaur" password="you_wish"> 
    <table name="artist" primary_key="id"> 
        <field name="name" type="varchar" size="256" options="not null">  
    </table> 
    <table name="album" primary_key="id"> 
        <field name="parent_id" references="artist" options="not null"/>  
        <field name="name" type="varchar" size="256"  options="not null"/>  
        <field name="image" type="varchar" size="4000" />  
    </table> 
    <table name="track" primary_key="id"> 
        <field name="parent_id" references="album" options="not null"/>  
        <field name="name" type="varchar" size="256"  options="not null"/>  
        <field name="filename" type="varchar" size="4000"/>  
        <field name="filesize" type="integer"/>  
    </table> 
</schema> 

Now, obviously thats not that perfect of an example (but I"m in a hurry, 'cause I need to go
 get some coffee), but it illustrates that the class could import that XML file, which defin
es the way it should interpret data.  So, it could fetch a particular record, and depending 
on how you tell it to operate, it could suck down all the data that the inital record refers
 to, or could retrieve it as-needed.

It may not operate as efficiently as possible by default, but would give much more flexibili
ty to the programmer.  I know that when I'm lazy, I don't want to bind all my values, and ma
ke sure I'm using optimized SQL statements (explain plan, and that sorta thing).  With this,
 I could "pre-define" SQL statements in this XML file that are pre-optimized, and I can just
 say:
$db-> run('do_really_scarry_join', %options);

Sory for the long message.  Would anyone like a module like this, or would I be just wasting
 my time? Anyone already have something like this?  Any feedback would be appreciated (excep
t flames and spam).

--man
Michael A. Nachbaur (KE6WIA)
mike(at)nachbaur(dot)com
http://www.nachbaur.com
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the 
former." - Albert Einstein