Working with Swift and Core Data - swift

This is more of a generalized question as I have yet to write the code for the question I am asking. Before I get started writing the code I wanted to make sure I am on the right track and possibly getting suggestions for better ways to do what I want to do. Basically right now I have a core data model setup in a way that I think is correct for what I am trying to do and just need some guidance on a very specific part of the code but want to make sure overall I created it correctly.
The first part to the question is more of a clarification on how relationships work in core data. Right now I have 5 entities and to make sure I have the correct idea on how it works I will use a few examples to make sure I am on the right track.
So lets save I have an entity I called name. Within that Name entity that contains only a name attribute. Next I have an entity that has classes, that each have a boolean of true or false to determine which class it is. These 2 are related in a inverse relationship of Name entity having a to one relationship and the Classes having a to many relationship because multiple names can have multiple classes but each name can only have 1 class. If I am right on this one that means I full understand core data relationships!
Now the second part of the question is related to the booleans in the class. I have the Class entity which is like I said a boolean containing a true false set as default to false. When the user selects one of the class buttons before presenting the popover where they actually give the name of the class selected it saves the boolean to true then passes that data over to the popover Name view controller. I am very unsure as to how to do this as it isn't a widely asked question on here nor have I been able to find any info through researching. I am one of those people who needs to actually learn by clear examples....any help with this would be appreciated! Sorry I don't have any example code for this.

The first part seems correct. The ManagedObject of your Class CoreDataObject should have an NSSet property which will contain the names (as the Class can have multiple names)
For the second part, Core Data uses objects. When you 'get' the data from Core Data it will be a (probably extended) NSManagedObject (named Class in our case). You can send this object as a parameter just as you would do with any other object and use it as you would use any other object :-). For example looping over de NSSet Names
func iterateOverNames(someClass: Class) {
for name: Name in someClass.names {
// do stuff
}
}
You can check these links for more information:
https://realm.io/news/jesse-squires-core-data-swift/
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/CoreDataFramework/Classes/NSManagedObject_Class/index.html

Related

What and when can "Target" be instead of an Entity and should I check its logical name when working on a single entity type?

I'm a newbie in developing in CRM, so I want to get some things clear. And you first you need to know the reason why you have to do something in order to fully understand it. So lets get to the question.
I know you have to do this when making a plugin:
var context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));
if (context.InputParameters.Contains("Target") && context.InputParameters.["Target"] is Entity)
{
var entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];
if(entity.LogicalName == "myEntity")
{
//Do something with your entity
}
}
Now, in the PluginRegistration Tool, you can set up that your plugin will be fired on the defined Message and which entities (and specific attributes from them) will be affected by it, besides other stuff.
I can see the validations are very useful when manipulating several entities with a single plugin.
Now, let's suppose you only are updating a single entity with your plugin. Why should I check if the entity that's on "Target" is the entity I want to work on, if I already know because I set it up for that entity in particular? What can an Entity be otherwise in that scenario?
Also, in what cases "Target" is NOT an Entity (in the current context)?
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is a silly question.
See this answer: Is Target always an Entity or can it be EntityReference?
Per the SDK (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309673.aspx):
Note that not all requests contain a Target property that is of type
Entity, so you have to look at each request or response. For example,
DeleteRequest has a Target property, but its type is
EntityReference.
The bottom line is that you need to look at the request (all plugin's fire on an OrganizationRequest) of which there are many derived types (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xrm.sdk.organizationrequest.aspx) to determine the type for the Target property.
As Nicknow said, the Input Parameters will change depending on the Message being executed.
You can get that information from the MSDN (every request will list the Input Parameters under the Properties section, for instance the CreateRequest) or using the ParameterBrowser.
There's also a really nice alternative to deal with this in a type-safe approach (intellisense included) described in the following blog article: mktange's blog.

How to solve this: application model and engine model mismatch when using JPA persistence?

The title may seems confusing, but it's not easy to describe the question in few words. Let me explain the situation:
We have a web application project, and a calculation engine project. The web application collect user input and use the engine to generate some result, and represent to user. Both user input, engine output and other data will be persisted to DB using JPA.
The engine input and output consist of objects in tree structure, example like:
Class InputA {
String attrA1;
List<InputB> inputBs;
}
Class InputB {
String attrB1;
List<InputC> inputCs;
}
Class InputC {
String attrC1;
}
The engine output is in similar style.
The web application project handle the data persistence using JPA. We need to persist the engine input and output, as well as some other data that related to the input and output. Such data can be seem as extra fields to certain class. For example:
We want to persist extra field, so it looks like:
Class InputBx extends InputB{
String attrBx1;
}
Class InputCx extends InputC{
String attrCx1;
}
In Java OO world, this works, we can store a list of InputBx in InputA, and store a list of InputCx in InputBx because of the inheritance.
But we meet trouble when using JPA to persist the extended objects.
First of all, it requires the engine project to make their class become JPA entities. The engine was working fine by itself, it accept correct input and generate correct output. It doesn't smell good to force their model to become JPA entities when another project try to persist the model.
Second, the JPA doesn't accept the inherited objects when using InputA as the entry. From JPA point of view, it only know that InputA contains a list of InputB, and not possible to persist/retrieve a list of InputBx in object of InputA.
When trying to solve this, we had come up 2 ideas, but neither one satisfied us:
idea 1:
Use composition instead inheritance, so we still persist the original InputA and it's tree structure include InputB and InputC:
Class InputBx{
String attrBx1;
InputB inputB;
}
Class InputCx{
String attrCx1;
InputC inputC;
}
So the original input object tree can be smoothly retrieved, and InputBx and InputCx objects needs to be retrieved using the InputB and InputC objects in the tree as references.
The good thing is that no matter what changes made to the structure of the original input class tree (such as change attribute name, add/remove attributes in the classes), the extended class InputBx and InputCx and their attributes automatically synchronized.
The drawback is that this structure increases the calls to the database, and the model is not easy to use in the application(both back end and front end). Whenever we want related information of InputB or InputC, we need to manually code to search the corresponding object of InputBx and InputCx.
idea 2:
Manually make mirror classes to form a similar structure of the original input classes. So we created:
Class InputAx {
String attrA1;
List<InputBx> inputBs;
}
Class InputBx {
String attrB1;
List<InputCx> inputCs;
String attrBx1;
}
Class InputCx {
String attrC1;
String attrCx1;
}
We could use this as model of the web application, and the JPA entities as well. Here's what we could get:
Now the engine project can be set free, it doesn't need to bind to how the other projects persist these input/output objects. The engine project is independant now.
The JPA persistence works just fluent, no extra calls to database is required
The back end and front end UI just use this model to get both original input objects and related information with no effort. When trying use engine to perform calculation, we can use a mapping mechanism to transfer between the original objects and extended objects.
The drawback is also obvious:
There is duplication in the class structure, which is not desired from the OO point of view.
When considering it as DTO to reduce the database calls, it can be claimed as anti-pattern when using DTO in local transfer.
The structure is not automatically synchronized with the original model. So if there are any changes made to the original model, we need to manually update this model as well. If some developers forget to do this, there will be some not-easy-to-find defects.
I'm looking for the following help:
Is there any existing good/best practices or patterns to solve similar situation we meet? Or any anti-patterns that we should try to avoid? References to web articles are welcome.
If possible, can you comment on the idea 1 and idea 2, from the aspect of OO design, Persistence practices, your experience, ect.
I will be grateful for your help.

Eclipse 4 RCP - how to change what is showed in specific area?

I have splitted my application into two main areas.
Part(A)
PartStashContainer(B)
The content of A should be set based on what user wants.
So basically i can have 1..N classes which could be used in Class URI of Part in application model.
I don't know if i should replace the whole Part(A) with new dynamically created Part(C) which has content i want, or i should somehow to modify the existing Part (call setContributionURI, or setObject methods on Part object?).
It does make more sense to me to modify the existing Part, because it is defined in Application model and therefore already describing the location where the content should be.
Possible solutions:
Modify the Part object so it "reload" its content based on new setup (But how? Can setContributionURI or setObject methods help?)
Remove the old Part and add dynamically on same place in Application model the new Part (using EModelService and EPartService).
other solution??
If you want to reuse the Part then do something like:
MPart part = find or inject your part
MyClass myClass = (MyClass)part.getObject();
... call a method of MyClass to change the contents
MyClass is the class you specify for the object in the application model. You should add a method to that to let you change the contents.
Don't try to call setObject, this is really only for use by Eclipse. I don't think setContributionURI would do anything after the part is created (but I am not sure).
If you want to use different classes for the different data then you really should use different Parts.

Storing a complex detached object graph in EF6

I have the current scenario:
I'm using EF6 Code first, and have created a data-model something like this:
public class MainObject{
..some properties
IList<SubObject> SubObjects{get;set;}
}
public class SubObject{
..some properties
IList<SubSubObject> SubSubObjects{get;set;}
}
public class SubObject{
..some properties
IList<SubObject> SubObjects{get;set;}
}
So basically I have a main object, that has 0 to many subobjects, and there is a many to many relationship between the subobject and the subsubobjects.
I am creating a MVC application, so my normal program flow is that the user request a page that basically uses a MainObject as it's data model. Then the user interacts with the page and changes, adds or removes subobjects and subsubobjects as he wishes, and then clicks save. On save, the objectgraph is sent back to the controller and it looks correct according to the changes done by the user on the client side. Now my problem is the following:
How to store this back into the database in a good fashion.
I need to attach my object back into the context, but I have no clue which objects are new, modified or deleted.
I have written some code that partially works now, but it's getting so ugly that I really don't want to go down that path. Would it be possible somehow to fetch the relevant object graph from the database, and have EF compare the two graphs toward eachother, and then save the relevant changes to the database?
Any help to make this smoother would be greatly appreciated.
I ended up using GraphDiff to solve this for me, and it works just great! This really should be built into EF, but untill it does, this is a great substitute.
To solve the example given in my question above, this will make sure that the detached graph gets saved properly (given I have a MainObject I want to save called main):
context.UpdateGraph(main, map =>map
.AssociatedCollection( m => m.SubObjects, with => with
.AssociatedCollection( s => s.SubSubObjects)
)
);
context.SaveChanges();

MEF: metadata seem to override interface when using GetExports

I'm building a MEF-based plugin-centric WPF application and I'm facing an issue with GetExports, maybe it's just my ignorance but I find an odd behaviour. I have a number of exported parts, all derived from 2 different interfaces (let's name them A and B), but all marked with the same metadata attribute X. So I have code like:
[Export(typeof(A))]
[TheXAttributeHere...]
public class SomePart1 : A { ... }
for each part, and the same for classes implementing B:
[Export(typeof(B))]
[TheXAttributeHere...]
public class SomePart2 : B { ... }
Now, when I try getting all the parts implementing A and decorated by attribute X with some values, MEF returns not only the A-implementing parts, but ALSO the B-implementing parts. So, when I expect to deal with A-objects I get a B, whence a cast exception.
In the real world, interfaces are named IItemPartEditorViewModel and IItemPartEditorView, while their common attribute is named ItemPartEditorAttribute and exposes a PartType string property on which I do some filtering. My code to get parts is thus like e.g.:
var p = (from l in container.GetExports<IItemPartEditorViewModel, IItemPartEditorMetadata>()
where l.Metadata.PartType == sPartType
select l).FirstOrDefault();
When looking for IItemPartEditorViewModel whose PartType is equal to some value, I get the IItemPartEditorView instead of IItemPartEditorViewModel implementing object. If I comment out the attribute in the IItemPartEditorView object instead, I correctly get the IItemPartEditorViewModel implementing object.
Update the suggested "templated" method was used, but I mistyped it here as I forgot to change lessthan and greaterthan into entities. Anyway, reviewing the code I noticed that in the attribute I had "ViewModel" instead or "View" for the interface type, so this was the problem. Shame on me, sorry for bothering :)!
I think I'd need to see more of the code to know for sure what's going on. However, I'd suggest you call GetExports like this:
// Get exports of type A
container.GetExports<A>();
// Get exports of type B
container.GetExports<B>();
Then do your filtering on the list returned. This will probably fix the cast issues you are having. I'd also be interested in seeing the code for the custom metadata attribute. If it derives from ExportAttribute for example, that might be part of the problem.