Joined Models

[skylardarkfox]

I'm currently working on a feature that emulates SQL joins in creating merged datasets from related Models. It will adopt five different SQL join types - left, right, inner, full, and cross - with equivalent behavior. Moreover, this will not be limited to equijoins; all SQL-standard binary comparisons will be supported, including <> anti-joins. I may consider adding more edge-case behavior, such as joins on BETWEEN and IN predicates, but I'm likely only to try to work this in if I need it or anyone asks for it.

[skylardarkfox]

I'm debating on whether joined Models should constitute a subclass of Model. This would allow, by extended properties and methods, a "JoinedModel" subclass to retain references to the Models from which it was constructed, possibly allowing for more robust behavior -- e.g., functionality resembling that of an updatable view, and possibly a more intuitive means of referencing columns from the combined dataset.

Things might get a little more interesting considering how the dataset is managed internally. It would have to be a touch more complicated than a simple two-dimensional array.

[skylardarkfox]

Model joins are successfully implemented via the Model->join() method and will be part of the 1.0 release.