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Technical Terms and Concepts

Technical Terms and Concepts

This section defines key technical terms and concepts used in the migration process from B2B Suite to B2B Commercial, providing clarity for developers navigating the migration.

Component

A component is a distinct module within the B2B Commercial system, such as B2B Commercial Employee Management, B2B Commercial Quote Management, or B2B Commercial Shopping List. Each component encapsulates a specific set of functionalities and associated data structures.

INFO

Components organize related entities and their migrations, ensuring modularity and maintainability.

Entity

An entity represents a specific type of data within a component. For example, within the B2B Commercial Employee Management component, entities include Employee, Role, and Permission. Each entity has its own attributes and behaviors, defined by its schema in the source and target tables.

Configurator

A configurator is a PHP class that defines the migration process for a component’s entities. It specifies:

  • Technical name of the component (e.g., employee_management).
  • Field mappings between source and target tables (see Field Mapping Configuration).
  • The XML configuration file path for mappings.

Configurator extends classes like AbstractB2BMigrationConfigurator or AbstractB2BExtensionMigrationConfigurator for base or extended migrations, respectively.

INFO

Configurator provides a structured way to customize and control the migration process for each component.

Handler

A handler is a PHP class that implements custom logic to transform data for specific fields during migration. Handlers are used when complex transformations are needed beyond simple mappings, ensuring data integrity and compatibility with B2B Commercial’s format. They are defined in the XML configuration and implemented via the transform method, as detailed in Handler-Based Transformation.

INFO

Handlers are critical for handling complex data transformations, such as reformatting or combining multiple source fields.