Good Practices MVC - php

Question

Assume I had a database with two tables:
customer
payment_info
The table customer had fields: name, address, payment_info_id
payment_info_id is a foreign key that links to a row in payment_info. payment_info has fields: id (which is linked to payment_info_id), bank, account number.
Because of my application's logic, each time a customer is created their payment information is stored in a separate row in the payment_info field which is linked to their row in the customer table.
I am using an MVC architecture.
Does it make more sense to keep this 'pure' and make two separate models, one for each table, and then crossload them and call methods from payment_info_controller in customer_controller, or to make a hybrid one which as soon as it creates a row in customer also creates one in payment_info?
Hope this makes sense!

Answer 1

You shouldn't be relying on controllers to do this. Put the logic in your model, behind a service layer(if desired), and call that from your controllers.
You should also reverse the FK setup. Stick customer id in payment_info and remove it payment_info_id from customer. That will make it so a customer can have multiple payments.
in the controller:
$user = new User(name, etc...);
$payment = new Payment(payment details...);
$user->applyPayment($paymentInfo);
$userService->save($user)
in the service:
function save($user){
//save user and update it with an id)
$user = $userDal->save($user);
//now that user has an id, you can generate/save payments.
$payment->save($user->getPayments());
}
You could then have the userService load the Data access layer for both user and payment.
Service/Facade info: http://www.dofactory.com/net/facade-design-pattern
NOTE: - you might want to come up with a better naming convention so its obvious that the payment will be saved/generated by that particular service. e.g SaveUserAndPayment($user)

Answer 2

Always keep it pure you dont need more unused methods to load than you could also from customer you do stuff while you have some customer params and need get something related to it, from payment you do stuff when you have some payment params and need dig something from that. You can always use payment or customer or any other models from any controller so keep it as pure as you can gl and hf ;)