Federico Cargnelutti

Last updated: 15 Feb, 2010

Part 1: Domain-Driven Design and MVC Architectures
Part 2: Domain-Driven Design: Data Access Strategies
Part 3: Domain-Driven Design: The Repository

Some of the Domain-driven design concepts explained above are applied in this sample application.

Directory Structure

app/
    config/
    controllers/
        UserController.php
    domain/
        entities/
            User.php
            UserProfile.php
        repositories/
            UserRepository.php
    views/
lib/
public/

The domain layer should be well separated from the other layers and it should have few dependencies on the framework you are using.

User Entity

The User and UserProfile objects have a one-to-one relationship and form an Aggregate. An Aggregate is as a collection of related objects that have references between each other. Within an Aggregate there’s always an Aggregate Root (parent Entity), in this case User:

class User
{
    private $id;
    private $name;

    /* @var UserProfile */
    private $profile;

    public function __construct($id, $name)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function setProfile(UserProfile $profile)
    {
        $this->profile = $profile;
    }

    public function getProfile()
    {
        return $this->profile;
    }
}

class UserProfile
{
    private $id;

    public function __construct($id)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
    }
}

Users Collection

A collection is simply an object that groups multiple elements into a single unit.

class Users
{
    private $elements = array();

    public function __construct(array $users)
    {
        foreach ($users as $user) {
            if (!($user instanceof User)) {
                throw new Exception();
            }
            $this->elements[] = $user;
        }
    }

    public function toArray()
    {
        return $this->elements;
    }
}

User DAO

The UserDAO class allows data access mechanisms to change independently of the code that uses the data:

interface UserDao
{
    public function find($id);
    public function findAll();
}

class UserDatabaseDao implements UserDao
{
    public function find($id)
    {
        $dataSource = Zf_Orm_Manager::getInstance()->getDataSource()
        $db = $dataSource->getConnection('slave');
        $query = $db->select()->from('user')->where('id = ?', $id);
        return $db->fetchRow($query);
    }

    public function findAll()
    {
        ...
        return $db->fetchAll($query);
    }
}

interface UserProfileDao
{
    public function find($id);
    public function findByUserId($id);
}

class UserProfileDatabaseDao implements UserProfileDao
{
    public function find($id)
    {
        ...
    }

    public function findByUserId($id)
    {
        $dataSource = Zf_Orm_Manager::getInstance()->getDataSource()
        $db = $dataSource->getConnection('slave');
        $query = $db->select()->from('user_profile')->where('user_id = ?', $id);
        return $db->fetchRow($query);
    }
}

User Repository

A Repository is basically a collection of Aggregate Roots. Collections are used to store, retrieve and manipulate Entities and Value objects, however, object management is beyond the scope of this post. The Repository object can inject dependencies on demand, making the instantiation process inexpensive.

class UserRepository
{
    /* @var UserDatabaseDao */
    private $userDao;

    /* @var UserProfileDatabaseDao */
    private $userProfileDao;

    public function __construct()
    {
    	$this->userDao = new UserDatabaseDao();
    	$this->userProfileDao = new UserProfileDatabaseDao();
    }

    public function find($id)
    {
        $row = $this->userDao->find($id);
        $user = new User($row['id'], $row['name']);

        $row = $this->userProfileDao->findByUserId($id);
        if (isset($row['id'])) {
            $profile = new UserProfile($row['id']);
            $user->setProfile($profile);
        }

        return $user;
    }

    public function findAll()
    {
        $users = array();
        $rows = $this->userDao->findAll();
        foreach ($rows as $row) {
            $users[] = new User($row['id'], $row['name']);
        }
        return new Users($users);
    }
}

Usage:

$repository = new UserRepository();
$user = $repository->find(1);
$profile = $user->getProfile();
$users = $repository->findAll();

Source Code

http://svn.fedecarg.com/repo/Zf/Orm

Links

If you’re interested in learning more about Domain-driven design, I recommend the following articles:

Domain Driven Design and Development In Practice
Domain-Driven Design in an Evolving Architecture

Part 2: Domain-Driven Design: Data Access Strategies

The Ubiquitous Language

The ubiquitous language is the foundation of Domain-driven design. The concept is simple, developers and domain experts share a common language that both understand. This language is set in business terminology, not technical terminology. This ubiquitous language allows the technical team become part of the business.

The Repository

Repositories play an important part in DDD, they speak the language of the domain and act as mediators between the domain and data mapping layers. They provide a common language to all team members by translating technical terminology into business terminology.

In a nutshell, a Repository:

• Is not a data access layer
• Provides a higher level of data manipulation
• Is persistence ignorance
• Is a collection of aggregate roots
• Offers a mechanism to manage entities

Data Access Objects

In the absence of an ORM framework, the Data Access Object (DAO) handles the impedance mismatch that a relational database has with object-oriented techniques. In DDD, you inject Repositories, not DAO’s in domain entities. For example, imagine you have an entity named User that needs to access the database to retrieve the User details:

class User
{
    private $id;
    private $name;

    public function __construct(UserDao $dao, $id)
    {
        $row = $dao->find($id);
        $this->setId($row['id']);
        $this->setName($row['name']);
    }

    public function setId($id) {}
    public function getId() {}
    public function setName($name) {}
    public function getName() {}
}

The User DAO class will look something like this:

interface UserDao
{
    public function fetchRow($id);
}

class UserDatabaseDaoImpl implements UserDao
{
    public function fetchRow($id)
    {
        ...
        $query = $db->select();
        $query->from('user');
        $query->where('id = ?', $id);
        return $db->fetchRow($query);
    }
}

$dao = new UserDatabaseDaoImpl();
$user = new User($dao, 1);
$userId = $user->getId();

But, what about separation of concerns? DAO’s are related to persistence, and persistence is infrastructure, not domain. The main problem with the example above is that we have lots of different concerns polluting the domain. According to DDD, an object should be distilled until nothing remains that does not relate to its meaning or support its role in interactions. And that’s exactly the problem the Repository pattern tries to solve.

Injecting Repositories

Lets create a UserRepository class to isolate the domain object from details of the UserDatabaseDaoImpl class:

class User
{
    private $id;
    private $name;

    public function __construct(UserRepository $repository, $id)
    {
        $row = $repository->find($id);
        $this->setId($row['id']);
        $this->setName($row['name']);
    }

    public function setId($id) {}
    public function getId() {}
    public function setName($name) {}
    public function getName() {}
}

It’s the responsibility of the UserRepository to work with all necessary DAO’s and provide all data access services to the domain model in the language which the domain understands.

interface UserRepository
{
    public function find($id);
}

class UserRepositoryImpl implements UserRepository
{
    private $databaseDao;

    public function setDatabaseDao(UserDao $dao) {}
    public function getDatabaseDao() {}

    public function find($id)
    {
        return $this->getDatabaseDao()->find($id);

    }
}

$userRepository = new UserRepositoryImpl();
$userRepository->setDatabaseDao(new UserDatabaseDaoImpl());

$user = new User($userRepository, 1);
$userId = $user->getId();
$userName = $user->getName();

The main difference between the Repository and the DAO is that the DAO is at a lower level of abstraction and doesn’t speak the ubiquitous language of the domain.

So, what’s next?

The process of creating an entity is complex, because an entity always has relationship with other objects in your domain model. When creating an entity, we have to initialize its relationships as well. Therefore, it’s a good practice to delegate this task to another object.

We’ve seen how to write a persistence-ignorant domain model. Next, I’ll explain how to automate the creation and injection of dependencies.

Part 4: Domain-Driven Design: Sample Application