What It Does

In Joomla Component Builder (JCB), every Admin View is backed by a database table. Rather than writing your own table creation scripts, JCB inspects the field definitions you configure and generates the SQL schema automatically.

This includes:

• Field names (column names)
• Data types (int, varchar, text, etc.)
• Field length and precision
• Nullability (required or nullable)
• Uniqueness
• Default values
• Keys (primary, foreign)

JCB will compile this structure into:

• install.sql — for first-time installation
• update.sql — for version-to-version schema migration (optional)
• uninstall.sql — for clean removal

How It Works

1. You create or edit an Admin View and add fields.
2. In each field:
   • You specify data type (e.g., string, int, datetime)
   • You define rules like required, unique, nullable, or default
3. JCB translates these into SQL column definitions at compile time.
4. The resulting schema is injected into the install/update/uninstall SQL files and handled by Joomla’s extension installer.

Bonus Features

• 📦 Schema Export — Generated SQL is visible in the compiled component package, so you can preview, tweak, or reuse it.
• 🔄 Schema Diff Logic — JCB intelligently compares previous schema versions to apply only necessary changes during upgrades.
• 🧪 Validation Sync — JCB syncs field-level validation with SQL rules to ensure frontend forms and database stay consistent.
• 🌐 Multilingual Fields — Multilanguage support integrates directly into field schema with proper index/key structure where needed.

Benefits

• ✅ Skip Manual SQL — No need to hand-write column structures.
• ✅ DRY Principle — Define once in GUI, used for DB + validation + form.
• ✅ Consistent — Prevents mismatch between frontend, backend, and DB logic.
• ✅ Safe — Outputs clean, scoped, Joomla-native SQL.

Conclusion

JCB makes database schema generation effortless and reliable by tying it directly to your GUI-defined fields. You design your component once — and JCB handles the rest, ensuring that your database structure matches your logic, constraints, and validation rules precisely.