NoSql Datasource for CakePHP

This class provides an abstraction layer for your nosql datasources.

###What it is not####

• This is not a full featured CakePHP abstraction layer, as you can't call $model->save() nor $model->find().
  Reason is that some nosql database, such as Redis, don't provide a single structure for saving datas (redis can save in a list, a hashset, a set), unlike sql database (tables with columns).
  Benefits: More control on how to save the datas, thus more performance
• This datasource is not linked to a model. You don't access it via $model->whaterverCommand().
  Reason is that this datasource doesn't behave like the DboDatasource, but more like the Cache.
  Benefits: You can search the database from your views (woah! It's not mvc …).

###Available noSql Datasource###

For now, only Redis is available.

###How to Use###

Database call is static, and behave like the Cache. Each command will depend on the available command for your specific nosql datasource. For Redis, available commands are NoSql::Redis()->xxx(), where xxx are all the generic command available for redis.

In fact, instead of doing that :

$Redis = new Redis()
$Redis->pconnect();
$result = $Redis->hget('myFirstKey');

You do that :

$result = NoSql::Redis()->hget('myFirstKey');

And that command is available anywhere, even in the views. Channeling all commands through the NoSql class enables queries logging, that you can see in DebugKit.

###Use case####

Example will use Redis. Main selling points of redis are its speed (as fast as memcached), persistent datas (memcached datas are flushed after system reboot), and low-level datas structure (set, hashset, etc …).

It can be used like a persistent mvc datasource (attached to a model), or a simple cache.

Let's say we have a posts database, a comments database, an users database.
A Post has many Comment, and a Comment hasOne User.
You can get a post comments and its user by finding a post, and uses contain to fetch its comments and user.

$post = $this->Post->find('all', array(
	'conditions' => array('id' => 256), 
	'contain' => array('Comment' => array('User))
));

The MYSQL JOIN here are costly, it joins 3 tables. We can reduce that to 2 by not joining the User, since we already have the user_id in the Comment tables (because of the HasOne relations, each comment already has a user_id field). Joining the user will only retrieve the username.

Then, in the views, we just call NoSql::Redis()->get('User:' . $post['Comment][0]['user_id]) to retrieve the username of the user for the specified comment. Of course, you have to prepoluate the databases with the users' username first. And datas will persist, since it's not a cache, but a database.

This is just a very basic example, but you can store entire object in Redis (via hashset), without the serialize/unserialize overhead you encounter with memcached.

###Install###

• Download and drop the NoSql folder in your Vendor directory.
  Or you can clone it directly with

    git clone git://github.com/kamisama/CakePHP-NoSQL-Datasource.git yourapp/Vendor/NoSql
  

• Import it in your application, by putting the following at the beginning of your AppModel.php :

    App::import('Vendor', 'NoSql/NoSql');
  

• Start using by calling NoSql::DATASOURCE()->COMMAND(). DATASOURCE is the name of the NoSql datasource you want to use, and COMMAND is the datasource own command. Only datasource available now is Redis.

###View queries in DebugKit###

Main reason I write this layer, instead of using the Redis class direcly, is logging. I wanted to log all nosql queries, and calling :

$Redis = new Redis()
$Redis->pconnect();
$result = $Redis->hget('myFirstKey');

doesn't let me do that. I you want to view all your nosql queries, see my other plugin, DebugKitEx, and extension to the original debugkit plugin, providing an additional panel for all the nosql queries.

##Changelog

###v.0.5.1 [2012-10-01]

• [fix] Fix getLogs() that was always returning null

###v.0.5 [2012-10-01]

• [new] Get logs from all datasources with Nosql::getLogs()

###v.0.4.1 [2012-09-18]

• [fix] Remove DataSourceNotFoundException class, already defined in Cake core

###v.0.4 [2012-09-09]

• [new] Add query time in logs
• [fix] Restructure folder tree to facilitate git cloning

###v.0.3 [2012-08-30]

• [change] Code formatting

###v.0.2 [2012-07-02]

• [new] Fallback to Redisent when PHPRedis is not installed