About Outlet

Motivation

I started this project because I want a transparent data mapper (like hibernate), that goes well with PHP (I don't want it to feel like java). It must have the following:

Clean entities that are decoupled from the mapper. No 'extends ActiveRecord', or 'extends Persistent', or ::save() methods on my entities.
Entities that look good when you 'print_r' them. When I print_r or var_dump an entity it should only show what I expect there: the entity properties. No database configuration, mappings, connection objects, or collections cache.
Public properties for table fields. No need to create getters and setters for each field. -- It turns out that a lot of developers prefer to use getters and setters. As of version 0.7, you can use either public properties or private properties with getters/setters
Straight SQL (almost) for selecting and retrieving entities. I don't want to learn another variant of SQL (hql, dql, linq, or criteria) when I already know SQL.

This library is not about database abstraction (although it does provide some abstraction). It is about using objects to model domain concepts. So I don't want to write another language for accessing the database. SQL is very well suited to some operations and I want to be able to take advantage of the differentiating features of the database I'm using. PDO provides enough abstraction for my taste.

Developers

Alvaro Carrasco - Main developer
Fábio Rehm - Developer
Matt Nowack - Developer

License

Outlet is available under the New BSD License:

 Copyright (c) 2007, Alvaro Carrasco
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted  provided that the following conditions are met:
 
    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
    * Neither the name of Outlet nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
 
 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
 "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
 LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
 A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR
 CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
 EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
 PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
 PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
 LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.