EOF Wiki

Welcome

This is the Objective-C EOF Wiki. It started as the MulleEOF wiki but soon after setting it up, it seemed to be a good idea to make it a Wiki available for all EOF clones. So for people looking for an Objective-C EOF clone, this is the place to be.

This Wiki is wholly unconcerned about Java-EOF as available through WebObjects 5 from Apple.

From now on all references to EOF will always mean Objective-C EOF and Java will be ignored.

If you are not that familiar with EOF and it's history, you can read a good historical overview on Wikipedia.

Because of Spambots, you will have to register and confirm your email address, before you can change anything.

Description

EOF is commonly referred to as a database abstraction layer. And it is also a toolkit of various components that can be used independently for programs without any database access. So it pays to get familiar with EOF, even if your application doesn't access a database. EOF traditionally has been separated in three frameworks

• EOControl the abstraction layer that provides the groundwork for the editing and persistance of objects
• EOInterface the GUI component, that ties AppKit to EOControl
• EOAccess for the concrete use of EOControl. It contains an EOObjectStore subclass, that uses one orr multiple SQL databases

for persistance

Articles

Articles about EOControl

• What problems can EOFault solve for you ?
• What is the entity concept in EOControl ?

Articles about EOInterface

• How changes in EOEnterpriseObjects propagate to EOAssociations' subjectChanged details the control flow starting with [self willChange]
• Who retains who when a NIB is loaded

Documentation

Documentation for EOF is available from Apple on the developer site.

• EOControl API Reference
• EOAccess API Reference
• EOInterface API Reference

Also some of these links may be helpful, as EOF became a part of WebObjects at some point in history

• WebObjects 4.5
• WO Developers Guide
• WO API Reference
• Foundation API Reference
• Legacy Docs

Implementations

The original

• Enterprise Objects Framework by Apple

and the clones

• AJRDatabase
• GDL1
• GDL2
• MulleEOF
• SOPE GDL1

Related Projects

• BDControl qualifier and sort ordering
• MulleConnectInspector for Interface Builder 2.4