In the price types table, we currently have the following data:

price_type_id  price_type_label
1              Sale Price
2              List Price
3              Cost
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The problem is, how do we figure out which type is which? As a temporary hack, I've done the following in our price type object:

sub SALE_PRICE_ID {1}
sub LIST_PRICE_ID {2}
sub COST_ID       {3}
[download]

In the product object, I have the following:

sub cost {
    return $_[0]->get_price(PriceType->COST_ID);
}

sub list_price {
    return $_[0]->get_price(PriceType->LIST_PRICE_ID);
}

sub sale_price {
    return $_[0]->get_price(PriceType->SALE_PRICE_ID);
}

sub get_price
{
    my ($self, $id) = @_;
    return unless $id and $id =~ /^[[:digit:]]+$/;

    my $price_type = PriceType->retrieve($id);
    $self->_croak "PriceType ID ($id) unknown" unless $price_type;

    my $sth = $self->sql_find_price;
    $sth->execute($self->id, $id);
    my ($price) = $sth->fetchrow_array;
    $sth->finish();

    return $price;
}
[download]

That is not terribly maintainable. I don't want to hardcode this data into the price types object, nor do I want code that requires that I write new object methods when I add another row to a database. If I can't figure out a better way of dealing with this, I'm going to have a multi-tiered system where my presentation layer is going to be coupled with my database layer!

Eagerly awaiting any and all advice :)

Cheers,
Ovid

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