Editing IRStats Technical Documentation (section)

== DatabaseInterface ==
This object does what it says on the tin.  Any access to the database is done though it.

=== Functions ===
*new(Configuration) - returns object.
*retreive_set_names() - returns a list of eprint sets.  This can be used to verify cgi input.
*get_membership(eprint_id, set_name) - For a given eprint ID, which of a named set does it belong to.  For example, we can find out which authors eprint 12614 has by get_membership(12614, 'author').
*get_citation(id, set, length) - returns a citation.  Every set member (eprint, author, group) has two citations.  short and full.  We only return a short citation if length == 'short'.  So, to get the short citation of a group 3: get_citation(3,'group','short').
*get_stats(params_object, query_params_hash) - returns a dbi object containing the stats we are interested.  i.e. the params_object's date range and eprints sets, and only the columns in query params hash.  The query params hash can contain the following key/value pairs
**columns => column_name_array - Which columns are we interested in?
**order => column_name - A hash containing a column name and directions (ASC or DESC)
**limit => int - How many results to return
**group_by => column_name - if we need to group by a column.
**where => where_hash_array - if additional logic needs to be applied, this array contains hashes containing a column name, an operator and a value.  These are ANDed together.
*check_tables() - If any IRStats tables are missing, this function will create them.
*insert_main_table_row(column_array) - inserts the values in the array into the main table (taking into account any tables that contain only IDs).
*do_sql(sql_query_string) - takes a string and performs a query, returning the dbi object containing the results.  This is the only point where sql is sent to the database.