Object Relational Mapping

Object Relational Mapping (or ORM), is a programming technique that links databases to object-oriented progamming concepts, creating (in effect) a "virtual object database." There are both free and commercial packages available that perform object-relational mapping, although some programmers opt to code their own object-relational mapping for their systems. (above was taken from WikiPedia's entry on ORM)

The idea is to create objects multiple objects that handle data from a database. While there are several ways to do this, the following list are common objects used by ORM tools.

• Record object - represents one record from a database. Typically has a getter and setter method for each field name in a table.
• Data Access Object - handles the create (insert), read (select), update, and delete (aka CRUD) queries for one record in a table.
• Gateway - the Gateway object will perform select queries that access multiple records. Typically this will return a recordset, query object or something similar (such as an array of record objects).

Writing and maintaining the above objects for each table in a database can get tedious and repetitive. Object Relational Mapping tools assist the developer in creating and using these objects. For Coldfusion developers, several ORM tools exist with varying functionality.

• ARF - Active Record Factory
• CFCPowerTools - Batch generation of your data layer objects in minutes.
• Reactor - Reactor is a very simple API for ColdFusion which generates and instantiates database abstraction CFCs on the fly as needed.
• objectBreeze - objectBreeze creates objects directly from your data persistence layer.

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