The Core Concepts of CubicWeb

=============================

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   :maxdepth: 1

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This section aims to provide you the keys of success with *CubicWeb*

by clarifying the terms specific to our framework. If you want to do anything

serious with CubicWeb, you should understand concepts in those lines.

*CubicWeb* defines its own terminology. To make sure there is no confusion

developing with *CubicWeb*.

.. _Cube:

Cubes

-----

** Construct your application by assembling cubes **

A cube provides a specific functionality, or a complete *CubicWeb*

application usually by assembling other cubes.

It's usually composed of a data model, some logic to manipulate it and some parts

of web interface.

You can decide to write your own set of cubes if you wish to re-use the

entity types you develop or/and if you have specific needs not covered by

cubes are available from the `CubicWeb Forge`_ under a free software license.

Available cubes on your system are defined in the directory

:file:`/usr/share/cubicweb/cubes` when using a system wide installation.  For people

using the mercurial repository of cubicweb, the :file:`/path/to/forest/cubicweb/cubes`

directory is used. You can specify additional location using the :envvar:`CW_CUBES_PATH`

environment variable, using ':' as separator.

.. _`CubicWeb Forge`: http://www.cubicweb.org/project/

Instances

----------

** *CubicWeb* framework is a server/client application framework**

An instance is a specific installation of one or multiple cubes. All the required

configuration files necessary for the well being of your web application are

grouped in an instance. This will refer to the cube(s) your application is based

on.  For example logilab.org and our intranet are two instances of a single cube

`jpl`

We recommand not to define schema, entities or views in the instance

file system itself but in the cube, in order to maintain re-usability of

entities and their views. We strongly recommand to develop cubes which

could be used in other instances (modular approach).

An instance usually usually consists into a web interface which is talking to a

rql repository, itself connected to a SQL database, all into a single

process. You can have some more complicated configurations using several web

front-ends talking to a rql repository using `Pyro`_, databases replication...

.. image:: ../../images/archi_globale.en.png

The term application is sometimes used to talk about an instance and sometimes to

talk of a cube depending on the context.  So we would like to avoid using this

term and try to use *cube* and *instance* instead.

Data Repository

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The repository (Be carefull not to get confused with a Mercurial repository or a

debian repository!) manages all interactions with various data sources by

providing access to them using uniformly using the Relation Query Language (RQL).  The

web interface and the repository communicate using this language.

Usually, the web server and repository sides are integrated in the same process and

interact directly, without the need for distant calls using Pyro. But, it is

important to note that those two sides, client/server, are disjointed and it is

possible to execute a couple of calls in distinct processes to balance the load

of your web site on one or more machines.

A data source is a container of data integrated in the *CubicWeb* repository. A

repository has at least one source, named `system`, which contains the schema of

the application, plain-text index and other vital informations for the

system. You'll find source for SQL databases, LDAP servers, other RQL

repositories and even mercurial /svn repositories or `Google App Engine`'s

datastore.

Web interface

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By default the web server provides a generated interface based on its schema.

Entities can be created, displayed, updated and deleted. As display views are not

very fancy, it is usually necessary to develop your own.

Instances are defined on your system in the directory :file:`/etc/cubicweb.d` when

using a system wide installation.  For people using the mercurial repository of

cubicweb, the :file:`etc` directory is searched in the user home directory. You can

also specify an alternative directory using the :envvar:`CW_REGISTRY` environment

variable.

Schema

------

** *CubicWeb* is schema driven **

The schema describes the persistent data model using entities and

relations. It is modeled with a comprehensive language made of Python classes based on

the `yams`_ library.

When you create a new cubicweb instance, the schema is stored in the database,

and it will usually evolves as you upgrade cubicweb and used cubes.

*CubicWeb* provides a certain number of system entities included

sytematically (necessary for the core of *CubicWeb*, notably the schema itself).

You will also find a library of cubes which defines more piece of schema for standard needs.

necessary.

*CubicWeb* add some metadata to every entity type, such as the eid (a global

  identifier, unique into an instance), entity's creation date...

Attributes may be of the following types:

  `String`, `Int`, `Float`, `Boolean`, `Date`, `Time`, `Datetime`,

  `Interval`, `Password`, `Bytes`.

New in 3.2: RichString

see :ref:`yams.BASE_TYPES`

Data level security is defined by setting permissions on entity and relation types.

A schema consist of parts detailed below.

Entity type

~~~~~~~~~~~

An *entity type* defines set of attributes and is used in some relations. It may

have some permissions telling who can read/add/update/delete entities of this type.

Relation type

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A *relation type* is used to define a semantic relation between two entity types.

It may have some permissions telling who can read/add/delete relation of this type.

In *CubicWeb* relations are ordered and binary: by convention we name the first

item of a relation the `subject` and the second the `object`.

Relation definition

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A *relation definition* is a 3-uple (*subject entity type*, *relation type*, *object

entity type*), with an associated set of property such as cardinality, constraints...

Dynamic objects for reusable components

---------------------------------------

** Dynamic objects management or how CubicWeb provides really reusable components **

Application objects

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beside a few core functionalities, almost every feature of the framework is

acheived by dynamic objects (`application objects` or `appobjects`) stored in a

two-levels registry (the `vregistry`). Each object is affected to a registry with

an identifier in this registry. You may have more than one object sharing an

identifier in the same registry, At runtime, appobjects are selected in the

vregistry according to the context.

Application objects are stored in the registry using a two level hierarchy :

  object's `__registry__` : object's `id` : [list of app objects]

The base class of appobjects is `AppRsetObject` (module `cubicweb.appobject`).

The `vregistry`

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At startup, the `registry` or registers base, inspects a number of directories

looking for compatible classes definition. After a recording process, the objects

are assigned to registers so that they can be selected dynamically while the

application is running.

Selectors

~~~~~~~~~

Each appobject has a selector, which is used to score how well it suits to a

given context by returning a score.  A score of 0 means the object doesn't apply

to the context. The score is used to choose the most pertinent object: the "more"

the appobject suits the context the higher the score.

CubicWeb provides a set of basic selectors which may be parametrized and combined

using binary `&` and `|` operators to provide a custom selector (which can be

itself reused...).

There is 3 current ways to retreive some appobject from the repository:

* get the most appropriate objects by specifying a registry and an identifier. In

  that case, the object with the greatest score is selected. There should always

  be a single appobject with a greater score than others.

* get all appobjects applying to a context by specifying a registry.In

  that case, every objects with the a postive score are selected.

* get the object within a particular registry/identifier. In that case no

  selection process is involved, the vregistry will expect to find a single

  object in that cell.

Selector sets are the glue that tie views to the data model. Using them

appropriately is an essential part of the construction of well behaved cubes.

When no score is higher than the others, an exception is raised in development

mode to let you know that the engine was not able to identify the view to

apply. This error is silented in production mode and one of the objects with the

higher score is picked. 

If no object has a positive score, ``NoSelectableObject`` exception is raised.

If no object is found for a particular registry and identifier,

``ObjectNotFound`` exception is raised.

In such cases you would need to review your design and make sure your views are

properly defined.

The RQL query language

----------------------

**No needs for a complicated ORM when you've a powerful query language**

All the persistant data in a CubicWeb application is retreived and modified by using the

Relation Query Language.

This query language is inspired by SQL but is on a higher level in order to

emphasize browsing relations.

db-api

~~~~~~

The repository exposes a `db-api`_ like api but using the RQL instead of SQL.

XXX feed me

Result set

~~~~~~~~~~

XXX feed me

Views

-----

** *CubicWeb* is data driven **

XXX feed me.

Hooks

-----

** *CubicWeb* provides an extensible data repository **

XXX feed me.