The Definitive Guide to Yii 2.0

This tutorial is released under the Terms of Yii Documentation.

2014 (c) Yii Software LLC.

Introduction
- About Yii
- Upgrading from Version 1.1
Getting Started
Application Structure
Handling Requests
Key Concepts
Working with Databases
Getting Data from Users
Displaying Data
Security
Caching
RESTful Web Services
Development Tools
Testing
Special Topics
Widgets
Helpers

Details: Parent Category: The Definitive Guide to Yii 2.0; Category: Working with Databases

Database Migration

During the course of developing and maintaining a database-driven application, the structure of the database being used evolves just like the source code does. For example, during the development of an application, a new table may be found necessary; after the application is deployed to production, it may be discovered that an index should be created to improve the query performance; and so on. Because a database structure change often requires some source code changes, Yii supports the so-called database migration feature that allows you to keep track of database changes in terms of database migrations which are version-controlled together with the source code.

Active Record

Active Record provides an object-oriented interface for accessing and manipulating data stored in databases. An Active Record class is associated with a database table, an Active Record instance corresponds to a row of that table, and an attribute of an Active Record instance represents the value of a particular column in that row. Instead of writing raw SQL statements, you would access Active Record attributes and call Active Record methods to access and manipulate the data stored in database tables.

Query Builder

Built on top of Database Access Objects, query builder allows you to construct a SQL query in a programmatic and DBMS-agnostic way. Compared to writing raw SQL statements, using query builder will help you write more readable SQL-related code and generate more secure SQL statements.

Database Access Objects

Built on top of PDO, Yii DAO (Database Access Objects) provides an object-oriented API for accessing relational databases. It is the foundation for other more advanced database access methods, including query builder and active record.

When using Yii DAO, you mainly need to deal with plain SQLs and PHP arrays. As a result, it is the most efficient way to access databases. However, because SQL syntax may vary for different databases, using Yii DAO also means you have to take extra effort to create a database-agnostic application.

Dependency Injection Container

A dependency injection (DI) container is an object that knows how to instantiate and configure objects and all their dependent objects. Martin Fowler's article has well explained why DI container is useful. Here we will mainly explain the usage of the DI container provided by Yii.

Details: Parent Category: The Definitive Guide to Yii 2.0; Category: Key Concepts

Service Locator

A service locator is an object that knows how to provide all sorts of services (or components) that an application might need. Within a service locator, each component exists as only a single instance, uniquely identified by an ID. You use the ID to retrieve a component from the service locator.

In Yii, a service locator is simply an instance of [[yii\di\ServiceLocator]] or a child class.