silverstripe-framework/docs/en/reference/database-structure.md

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# Database Structure
SilverStripe is currently hard-coded to use a fix mapping between data-objects and the underlying database structure -
opting for "convention over configuration". This page details what that database structure is.
## Base tables
Each direct sub-class of `[api:DataObject]` will have its own table.
The following fields are always created.
* ID: Primary Key
* ClassName: An enumeration listing this data-class and all of its subclasses.
* Created: A date/time field set to the creation date of this record
* LastEdited: A date/time field set to the date this record was last edited
Every object of this class **or any of its subclasses** will have an entry in this table
### Extra Fields
* Every field listed in the data object's **$db** array will be included in this table.
* For every relationship listed in the data object's **$has_one** array, there will be an integer field included in the
table. This will contain the ID of the data-object being linked to. The database field name will be of the form
"(relationship-name)ID", for example, ParentID.
### ID Generation
When a new record is created, we don't use the database's built-in auto-numbering system. Instead, we generate a new ID
by adding 1 to the current maximum ID.
## Subclass tables
At SilverStripe's heart is an object-relational model. And a component of object-oriented data is **inheritance**.
Unfortunately, there is no native way of representing inheritance in a relational database. What we do is store the
data sub-classed objects across **multiple tables**.
For example, suppose we have the following set of classes:
* Class `[api:SiteTree]` extends `[api:DataObject]`: Title, Content fields
* Class `[api:Page]` extends `[api:SiteTree]`: Abstract field
* Class NewsSection extends `[api:SiteTree]`: *No special fields*
* Class NewsArticle extend `[api:Page]`: ArticleDate field
The data for the following classes would be stored across the following tables:
* `[api:SiteTree]`
* ID: Int
* ClassName: Enum('SiteTree', 'Page', 'NewsArticle')
* Created: Datetime
* LastEdited: Datetime
* Title: Varchar
* Content: Text
* `[api:Page]`
* ID: Int
* Abstract: Text
* NewsArticle
* ID: Int
* ArticleDate: Date
The way it works is this:
* "Base classes" are direct sub-classes of `[api:DataObject]`. They are always given a table, whether or not they have
special fields. This is called the "base table"
* The base table's ClassName field is set to class of the given record. It's an enumeration of all possible
sub-classes of the base class (including the base class itself)
* Each sub-class of the base object will also be given its own table, *as long as it has custom fields*. In the
example above, NewsSection didn't have its own data and so an extra table would be redundant.
* In all the tables, ID is the primary key. A matching ID number is used for all parts of a particular record:
record #2 in Page refers to the same object as record #2 in `[api:SiteTree]`.
To retrieve a news article, SilverStripe joins the `[api:SiteTree]`, `[api:Page]` and NewsArticle tables by their ID fields. We use a
left-join for robustness; if there is no matching record in Page, we can return a record with a blank Article field.
## Staging and versioning
[todo]
## Schema auto-generation
SilverStripe has a powerful tool for automatically building database schemas. We've designed it so that you should never have to build them manually.
To access it, visit (site-root)/dev/build?flush=1. This script will analyze the existing schema, compare it to what's required by your data classes, and alter the schema as required.
Put the ?flush=1 on the end if you've added PHP files, so that the rest of the system will find these new classes.
It will perform the following changes:
* Create any missing tables
* Create any missing fields
* Create any missing indexes
* Alter the field type of any existing fields
* Rename any obsolete tables that it previously created to _obsolete_(tablename)
It **won't** do any of the following
* Deleting tables
* Deleting fields
* Rename any tables that it doesn't recognize - so other applications can co-exist in the same database, as long as their table names don't match a SilverStripe data class.
## Related code
The information documented in this page is reflected in a few places in the code:
* `[api:DataObject]`
* requireTable() is responsible for specifying the required database schema
* instance_get() and instance_get_one() are responsible for generating the database queries for selecting data.
* write() is responsible for generating the database queries for writing data.
* `[api:Versioned]`
* augmentWrite() is responsible for altering the normal database writing operation to handle versions.
* augmentQuery() is responsible for altering the normal data selection queries to support versions.
* augmentDatabase() is responsible for specifying the altered database schema to support versions.
* `[api:MySQLDatabase]`: getNextID() is used when creating new objects; it also handles the mechanics of
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updating the database to have the required schema.