Reference

Result Sets

Zend\Db\ResultSet is a sub-component of zend-db for abstracting the iteration of results returned from queries producing rowsets. While data sources for this can be anything that is iterable, generally these will be populated from Zend\Db\Adapter\Driver\ResultInterface instances.

Result sets must implement the Zend\Db\ResultSet\ResultSetInterface, and all sub-components of zend-db that return a result set as part of their API will assume an instance of a ResultSetInterface should be returned. In most cases, the prototype pattern will be used by consuming object to clone a prototype of a ResultSet and return a specialized ResultSet with a specific data source injected. ResultSetInterface is defined as follows:

use Countable;
use Traversable;

interface ResultSetInterface extends Traversable, Countable
{
    public function initialize(mixed $dataSource) : void;
    public function getFieldCount() : int;
}

Quick start

Zend\Db\ResultSet\ResultSet is the most basic form of a ResultSet object that will expose each row as either an ArrayObject-like object or an array of row data. By default, Zend\Db\Adapter\Adapter will use a prototypical Zend\Db\ResultSet\ResultSet object for iterating when using the Zend\Db\Adapter\Adapter::query() method.

The following is an example workflow similar to what one might find inside Zend\Db\Adapter\Adapter::query():

use Zend\Db\Adapter\Driver\ResultInterface;
use Zend\Db\ResultSet\ResultSet;

$statement = $driver->createStatement('SELECT * FROM users');
$statement->prepare();
$result = $statement->execute($parameters);

if ($result instanceof ResultInterface && $result->isQueryResult()) {
    $resultSet = new ResultSet;
    $resultSet->initialize($result);

    foreach ($resultSet as $row) {
        echo $row->my_column . PHP_EOL;
    }
}

Zend\Db\ResultSet\ResultSet and Zend\Db\ResultSet\AbstractResultSet

For most purposes, either an instance of Zend\Db\ResultSet\ResultSet or a derivative of Zend\Db\ResultSet\AbstractResultSet will be used. The implementation of the AbstractResultSet offers the following core functionality:

namespace Zend\Db\ResultSet;

use Iterator;

abstract class AbstractResultSet implements Iterator, ResultSetInterface
{
    public function initialize(array|Iterator|IteratorAggregate|ResultInterface $dataSource) : self;
    public function getDataSource() : Iterator|IteratorAggregate|ResultInterface;
    public function getFieldCount() : int;

    /** Iterator */
    public function next() : mixed;
    public function key() : string|int;
    public function current() : mixed;
    public function valid() : bool;
    public function rewind() : void;

    /** countable */
    public function count() : int;

    /** get rows as array */
    public function toArray() : array;
}

Zend\Db\ResultSet\HydratingResultSet

Zend\Db\ResultSet\HydratingResultSet is a more flexible ResultSet object that allows the developer to choose an appropriate "hydration strategy" for getting row data into a target object. While iterating over results, HydratingResultSet will take a prototype of a target object and clone it once for each row. The HydratingResultSet will then hydrate that clone with the row data.

The HydratingResultSet depends on zend-hydrator, which you will need to install:

$ composer require zendframework/zend-hydrator

In the example below, rows from the database will be iterated, and during iteration, HydratingResultSet will use the Reflection based hydrator to inject the row data directly into the protected members of the cloned UserEntity object:

use Zend\Db\Adapter\Driver\ResultInterface;
use Zend\Db\ResultSet\HydratingResultSet;
use Zend\Hydrator\Reflection as ReflectionHydrator;

class UserEntity
{
    protected $first_name;
    protected $last_name;

    public function getFirstName()
    {
        return $this->first_name;
    }

    public function getLastName()
    {
        return $this->last_name;
    }

    public function setFirstName($firstName)
    {
        $this->first_name = $firstName;
    }

    public function setLastName($lastName)
    {
        $this->last_name = $lastName;
    }
}

$statement = $driver->createStatement($sql);
$statement->prepare($parameters);
$result = $statement->execute();

if ($result instanceof ResultInterface && $result->isQueryResult()) {
    $resultSet = new HydratingResultSet(new ReflectionHydrator, new UserEntity);
    $resultSet->initialize($result);

    foreach ($resultSet as $user) {
        echo $user->getFirstName() . ' ' . $user->getLastName() . PHP_EOL;
    }
}

For more information, see the zend-hydrator documentation to get a better sense of the different strategies that can be employed in order to populate a target object.