DAO vs ActiveRecord methods

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

Hi,

For me, DAO and its methods is faster than ActiveRecord and its methods, especially to fetch a large amount of data.

So my habit is to use DAO every time I know I’m going to fetch many rows.

I’m just wondering if it’s the good practice.

thanks to share your point of view concerning this topic.

2

Yes, that’s good practice.

3

If you use AR, it’s far easier to integrate it with all kinds of built-in methods like validation, widgets, etc.

I think it’s far cleaner and easier to read than plain queries. I’m only using queries for complicated things or when performance is an issue, like importing/exporting large amounts of data.

I mean how can you in general prefer:


$sql="SELECT * FROM entries where id=:id";

$command=$connection->createCommand($sql);

$command->bindParam(":id",$id,PDO::PARAM_INT);

$command->execute();

$data = $command->queryAll();

above:


$data = Entries::model()->findByPk($id);
4

You’d prefer DAO over AR because it doesn’t require as much memory. ;)

If you have many small queries - mostly lookups - then it makes sense to use DAO instead of full-fledged AR objects.

That depends on a lot of things…

5

Creating an empty AR object and setting the result is extremely light…

but you could also have the best of both worlds ;)


$data = Entries::model()->findBySql("SELECT * FROM entries WHERE id = $id");

I do agree that it can be overkill to create a model just for checking if some setting is true or false…

In general, I think best practice is to use AR unless:

  • performance is an issue like massive update or indexing scripts

  • you need fine grained control using specific queries

  • you want to use DB functionality that is not present in AR

  • doing very small lookups of data

6

I’m using a mix, where I use AR when I need more.

PS: You can also specify which fields to select when getting AR. This can also be configured for relations.

7

OK,

but you can write it so, too:




$rows=Yii::app()->db->createCommand("SELECT * FROM entries where id=:id"<img src='http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />->queryAll(array(':id'=>$id));