Magento ORM Documentation

Question

Outside of the source code, is there any extensive documentation on the Magento ORM? I get the basics, and can usually dig through the Mage code base, litter it with Mage::Log

Answer 1

For the Magento ORM which is based off of Zend Framework's Zend_Db_Adapter , you can use the Zend Framework Programmers Reference (Available as a free pdf on Zend Framework's site ). I also found this link helpful for learning more about Magento models.

Answer 2

Since this question was answered, some documentation has been created on the ORM at the magento knowledge base.

Introductory information: http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-for-dev-part-5-magento-models-and-orm-basics

Advanced ORM usage and the EAV system: http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-for-dev-part-7-advanced-orm-entity-attribute-value

Working with the Varien collections (lazy loading, filtering, etc...): http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-for-dev-part-8-varien-data-collections

Answer 3

While there isn't much documentation on the ORM, here were a few pages that greatly helped in my understanding of the database structure which will help you understand everything else:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/development/magento_database_diagram http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/7359/