! Move value to by-value modifiers [c++11] ! Diagnose use of relationship smart pointer if object pointer is raw [diag] Diagnose if it is raw by default (i.e., not explicitly specified) and suggest explicitly making it raw (pointer(*)) if that's what the user really wants. ! Ability to not own underlying database connections Could be useful when trying to work with other "database drivers". Seems what would be useful: 1. Flag to the handle ctor not to free. 2. detach() in addition to handle(). 3. In connection_pool, delete the connection if it was returned detached (handle is free). Also make the connection guts protected. ! Ability not to generate schema for certain objects/containers Sometimes it can be useful to overlay an object onto existing (or another object/container) table. This is possible now for object if one is careful with order but not for containers. Perhaps an explicit no_schema pragma? Once this is fixed, diagnose using of abstract classes in views. See email from /13-Mar-2015. Perhaps this should be also extended to columns. E.g., column that is an expression. See email from /30-Apr-2015. The problem with columns is that it is only a part of the solution. We should also ignore them in the INSERT statements, and that will get hairy. Also it seems we may want to have no_scema but insert column or no_schema/no_insert (expression). Or perhaps if there is no_schema then also assume we are not responsible for the insertion. What if we don't treat it as a column but as an expression rather? I.e., it doesn't even end up in column_counts? Maybe it ends up in expression_count? Will probably have problems with things like empty(-looking) sections. Coming from another side: this will be pretty trivial to implement with an object-loading view. Could we somehow have a custom load implementation (via OVL)? Would also be necessary for query. What about defining other (potentially OL) views based on it. We cannot define a view based on another view. ! Primary key in to-many container table Can we add 'unique' (similar to 'unordered') to container of object pointers data member that says no duplicate pointers. We can then generate a primary key based on the two ids. In fact, should we not do this by default? The other way to achieve the same end result would be via the support for container indexes (i.e., add unique index based on the two). See email from /13-Feb-2015. ! Virtual data member only handle simple type specification Right now there is no way to say virtual(void*) or virtual(nullable). Can we do something about at least the simple cases, i.e., the raw pointer (used in the object loading views; see all those *_ptr's in the manual) and simple templates like above? While we can instantiate the corresponding template in GCC tree, the problem is that those types will not be in our semantics graph. This need to "parse some more" and add things to the graph pops up regularly, so maybe we should do it. Don't see any serious problems in supporting something like this. In fact, this particular case, I think, happens during parsing (or virtual data members). - Schema to C++ classes http://codesynthesis.com/pipermail/odb-users/2014-January/001769.html What if instead of all these mappings, customizations, etc., we just provide a template (or a plugin) and let the user write/customize some C++ code to produce a mapping that they want? Another idea: define database schema tables as persistent classes? What if the generator is basically an ODB-based application that the user is expected to customize? - ON UPDATE clause in generated schema Would be nice to be able to specify this similar to on_delete. - load_value() that returns object by value, similar to query_value() That would be both the database class function as well as the query result iterator function. The latter would be especially useful with views. Somewhat related: it could be that for views it is better not to dynamically allocate the instance when we do something like i->count. - Mass UPDATE This could be very useful in data migration code. In fact, need to add an example in the manual when this is supported. ? Duplicate columns It can sometimes be useful to map multiple data members to the same column. For example, to map a shared_ptr to another object via id. Or to update object id. To implement this, we will have to be able to ignore duplicates in the INSERT statement and in generated schema. So there will have to be quite a bit of work throughout (bind, init, column counts, etc). Also not clear if it is a good idea to always ignore duplicates (could actually be a mistake) or only if the column name is specified explicitly (still can be a mistake). Or mark it as a duplicate with a special pragma. Is this a special case of something like "expression columns"? It seems the only place where such a duplicate column will actually be mentioned is the SELECT statement.