[pmwiki-users] PageLists of database contents

[Pico]

> From: Ben Stallings <Ben at InterdependentWeb.com>
> Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> > 1.  Create a custom PageStore object that converts database records
> > into (virtual) pages.  In other words, when some function calls
> > ReadPage('DataBase.RecordId'), the custom PageStore object should
> > return the equivalent of a page where $page['text'] is:
> > 
> >     (:Field1:Value:)
> >     (:Field2:Value:)
> >     (:Field3:Value:)
> > 
> > Once you have that, then (:pagelist:) should be able to do a
> > variety of searches and sorts based on the records in the database,
> > and use custom pagelist templates for the output.  (Hint:  the
> > PageStore object will need to implement the read(), ls(), and 
> > exists() methods.)
> 
> Success!  I've got a new DataStore object (based on PageStore) that 
> supports the read, ls, and exists methods, and I've added it to the 
> $WikiLibDirs, so that if you go to 
> http://www.workscited.net/ben/Source/Source you will see (after a long 
> delay) a pagelist of records in the `source` table of the WorksCited.net 
> database.  Note that this page (Source/Source) does not exist; it's 
> being generated by the DataStore object.

Congratulations!

> 
> If you click one of the "pages" in that list, you won't see anything 
> because there's not yet a template to display the data, but if you 
> *edit* one of them, for example 
> http://www.workscited.net/ben/Source/12?action=edit , you'll see that 
> the data fields are defined as Pm specified above.  (Don't try to save 
> changes, though; I haven't gotten to that yet.)
> 

AFAIK, isn't the reason we aren't seeing anything because you are using
the directive form  of page text variables (as Pm suggested).  I'm not
questioning that decision, but I think that if you used the standard
forms (either a definition list :term:definition or the new form of
term:definition) then you would see all of the fields and assigned
values in the view mode.  (Or am I missing something here?).

> So that much is good.  However, I could use some help with a few 
> things... sorry to be pesky.
> 
> First and most obviously, this is extremely slow and inefficient on even 
> a modest-size database.  The ls() method generates a list of every 
> single record in every table of the database, and then PageList calls 
> the read() method to individually query each record and gloms its fields 
> together into a big block of text before attempting to parse the text 
> back up again into page text variables.  There's gotta be a better way, 
> but I'm not sure what it is... I want to be able to use PageList's 
> powerful searching syntax and templates, but without the overhead of 
> converting every single record into text and back again.  Suggestions?
> 
> Second, if you try searching the Source group at 
> http://www.workscited.net/ben/Site/Search , it doesn't appear to search 
> page text variables... which was the whole point of putting the records 
> in that format.  For example, search for $:firstname=Will.  No dice, 
> although you can see by clicking the editing link above that record 12's 
> firstname is Will.  I'm using 2.0.0-beta-9.  Ideas?
> 
> Thanks again!!  I really believe this will be worth the trouble... --Ben S.
> 
Thank you.

Pico