Grails transient property not validating error? - mongodb

I have a domain class:
class Book {
String id
Date dateCreated
Date lastUpdated
String title
boolean acceptPolicy // defines if the user accepts the terms and privacy poicy
String uploadImageId
static transients = [ "acceptPolicy" ]
static constraints = {
acceptPolicy( validator: { val, obj -> val == true} )
}
}
I choose "acceptPolicy" as a field which should not be stored in the database. When I create a book object everything works find. The problem occurs when I update the book instance. Every time I try to save I get a validation error for the "acceptPolicy". This should not be the case because "acceptPolicy" is not stored in the database. I also tried to set the
acceptPolicy = true
in a hidden input field but still this problem occurs. How can I fix it?

Change the validator and make it behave so that it only validates the acceptPolicy field when the entity is not yet persistent:
acceptPolicy( validator: { val, obj -> obj.id || val } )

Related

How to get the maximum length of a string from an EDMX model in code?

I've created an EDMX object from a database I'm programming against.
I need to get input from a user and save it to a row in the database table. The problem is that I need to limit the length of input strings to the width of the corresponding VARCHAR column in the database.
When I browse the model, I can clearly see in the properties window that the model knows the max length of the string, but I don't know how to access this data in code.
If I want to write something like this:
Entities entities = new Entities();
myTable = entities.myTable.First();
if (userInput.length > myTable.columnA.MaxLength)
{
// tell the user that the input is too long.
}
else
{
myTable.columnA = userInput;
}
How do I write it?
Update: I would like to point out that the IObjectContextAdapater mentioned in the answers below is in the System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure namespace.
Here are two methods by which you can read the meta data:
int? GetMaxLength(DbContext context, string tableName, string propertyName)
{
var oc = ((IObjectContextAdapter)context).ObjectContext;
return oc.MetadataWorkspace.GetItems(DataSpace.CSpace).OfType<EntityType>()
.Where(et => et.Name == tableName)
.SelectMany(et => et.Properties.Where(p => p.Name == propertyName))
.Select (p => p.MaxLength)
.FirstOrDefault();
}
int? GetMaxLength<T>(DbContext context, Expression<Func<T, object>> property)
{
var memberExpression = (MemberExpression)property.Body;
string propertyName = memberExpression.Member.Name;
return GetMaxLength(context, typeof(T).Name, propertyName);
}
So you can either enter the table name and property name, or an expression that specifies the property you're interested in.
Another approach could be to create a MetaData class and use the MaxLength attribute.
It's not very pretty; reading edmx properties at runtime is not something Microsoft exposed easily or documented well (or in some cases, at all). context is your DBContext.
var objectContext = ((IObjectContextAdapter)context).ObjectContext;
var entityType = objectContext.MetadataWorkspace.GetItems<EntityType>(DataSpace.CSpace).Where(e => e.Name == "your entity name").First();
var facets = entityType.Properties["your property name"].TypeUsage.Facets;
facets will look something like this, so you'll need to look for the MaxLength Name(may not exist, depending on the underlying field type) and get the Value:
Count = 5
[0]: Nullable=false
[1]: DefaultValue=null
[2]: MaxLength=250
[3]: Unicode=false
[4]: FixedLength=false
If you modify the T4 template you can add your own attribute to the properties that have MaxLength set.
If you can find the right place to add it, it's something as simple as this:
var lengthAttributeText = edmProperty.MaxLength.HasValue
? string.Format("[MaxLength({0})] ", edmProperty.MaxLength.Value)
: "";
And then add this into the text for the property line. (Tricky to be more detailed since I've already modified my .tt file a lot; also the lack of proper IDE support for .tt files makes this a lot harder than it could be.)

Unique Constraint over values of two domain classes in Grails

I have two domain classes. One is :
class User {
String login
String password
String firstName
String lastName
String address
String email
static constraints = {
login blank:false, size:5..15,matches:/[\S]+/, unique:true
password blank:false, size:5..15,matches:/[\S]+/
firstName blank:false
lastName blank:false
email email: true
}
}
And other is
class AddWebsite {
String website
User user
static constraints = {
website blank:false
website(unique: ['user'])
}
}
I am working with MongoDB at the backend. I need that for a particular login value, all siteURL values should be unique. Ex: login = abc#gmail.com. Then this user can have all unique url only in the database. But same urls can exist for different users. How do I do that using the unique constraint or any other approach?
Use embedded sub-documents to store SiteURL instances right inside the User. Then you define the collection to be a Set, which makes sure, all it's entries are unique. If you want to use the default mongo collection types or want to persist the order, define an interceptor like:
def beforeSave = {
urls = urls.unique()
}
UPDATE:
If your urls are plain strings, use the default primitive collection (no hasMany):
class User {
String login
//...
Set urls = new HashSet()
}
In this case you should be able to place unique constraint on the AddWebsite domain class such as this:
class AddWebsite {
String website
User user
static constraints = {
website(blank:false, unique: ['user'])
}
}
This will ensure that each website is unique in the database per user. Notice that multiple constraints are applied to the property website.
edited to match updated question.
It finally worked. I was getting the user cannot be null error while entering the website though it was not being validated in the AddWebsite domain class. I made the following changes and got it to work:
class AddWebsite{
String website
User user
static belongsTo = [user: User]
static constraints = {
website( url:true, unique: ['user'])
}
}
And in my controller also, I set the value of the user object to the session variable:
def addWebsites() {
if(request.method == 'POST') {
def w = new AddWebsite()
w.properties[
'website'
] = params
w.user = session["user"] //modified to make it work
if(w.save()) {
render view:'addWebsites', model:[message: "Successfully saved"]
}
else {
return [addWebsite:w]
}
}
Hope it helps someone :)

MongoDB 10Gen Driver null handling

we are having DateTime field and we are reading from MongoDB collection and deserialising into that class. Lets say if it has null in DateTime DB field and MongoDriver is trying to set null to that datetime field which is non nullable type . It s throwing error.
.FindAll().ToList() => error in here.
Any help to overcome this problem ?
Note that : We can use nullable Datetime (DateTime?) . but we need Non nullable type only in domain model. So i just want to use non nullable DateTime while serializing
There are two possibilities for null in this case. You could have stored an actual null in your database:
{
_id:ObjectId(),
MyDateTime:null
}
Or you are not storing the field at all:
{
_id:ObjectId()
}
In the first case, you could handle this by creating your own serializer:
public class DateTimeSerializer : BsonBaseSerializer
{
public override object Deserialize(BsonReader bsonReader, Type nominalType, Type actualType, IBsonSerializationOptions options)
{
var bsonType = bsonReader.CurrentBsonType;
switch (bsonType)
{
case BsonType.Null:
bsonReader.ReadNull();
return new DateTime();
case BsonType.DateTime:
return bsonReader.ReadDateTime();
default:
var message = string.Format("DateTimeSerializer needs a DateTime not {0}.", bsonType);
throw new BsonSerializationException(message);
}
}
public override void Serialize(BsonWriter bsonWriter, Type nominalType, object value, IBsonSerializationOptions options)
{
if (value == null)
{
TimeSpan nowMs = DateTime.Now-new DateTime(1970,1,1);
bsonWriter.WriteDateTime((long)nowMs.TotalMilliseconds);
}
else
{
bsonWriter.WriteString((string)value);
}
}
}
(In this case, giving the current date whenever a null is serialized or de-serialized)
You would then need to register this as the serializer for the DateTime type:
BsonClassMap.RegisterClassMap<MyClass>(cm =>
{
cm.AutoMap();
cm.GetMemberMap(mc => mc.MyDateTime).SetSerializer(new DateTimeSerializer());
});
It has to be said that it would be easier to sanitize the data at the source, so that it didn't have nulls in the first place.
In the second case, this has been handled by the C# driver for MongoDB since 1.5, which version are you using? You could set the default value by registering your own class map, like the following, but as mentioned above it should no longer be required.
BsonClassMap.RegisterClassMap<MyClass>(cm =>
{
cm.AutoMap();
cm.GetMemberMap(mc => mc.MyDateTime).SetDefaultValue(new DateTime());
});

How to handle optional query parameters in Play framework

Lets say I have an already functioning Play 2.0 framework based application in Scala that serves a URL such as:
http://localhost:9000/birthdays
which responds with a listing of all known birthdays
I now want to enhance this by adding the ability to restrict results with optional "from" (date) and "to" request params such as
http://localhost:9000/birthdays?from=20120131&to=20120229
(dates here interpreted as yyyyMMdd)
My question is how to handle the request param binding and interpretation in Play 2.0 with Scala, especially given that both of these params should be optional.
Should these parameters be somehow expressed in the "routes" specification? Alternatively, should the responding Controller method pick apart the params from the request object somehow? Is there another way to do this?
Encode your optional parameters as Option[String] (or Option[java.util.Date], but you’ll have to implement your own QueryStringBindable[Date]):
def birthdays(from: Option[String], to: Option[String]) = Action {
// …
}
And declare the following route:
GET /birthday controllers.Application.birthday(from: Option[String], to: Option[String])
A maybe less clean way of doing this for java users is setting defaults:
GET /users controllers.Application.users(max:java.lang.Integer ?= 50, page:java.lang.Integer ?= 0)
And in the controller
public static Result users(Integer max, Integer page) {...}
One more problem, you'll have to repeat the defaults whenever you link to your page in the template
#routes.Application.users(max = 50, page = 0)
In Addition to Julien's answer. If you don't want to include it in the routes file.
You can get this attribute in the controller method using RequestHeader
String from = request().getQueryString("from");
String to = request().getQueryString("to");
This will give you the desired request parameters, plus keep your routes file clean.
Here's Julien's example rewritten in java, using F.Option: (works as of play 2.1)
import play.libs.F.Option;
public static Result birthdays(Option<String> from, Option<String> to) {
// …
}
Route:
GET /birthday controllers.Application.birthday(from: play.libs.F.Option[String], to: play.libs.F.Option[String])
You can also just pick arbitrary query parameters out as strings (you have to do the type conversion yourself):
public static Result birthdays(Option<String> from, Option<String> to) {
String blarg = request().getQueryString("blarg"); // null if not in URL
// …
}
For optional Query parameters, you can do it this way
In routes file, declare API
GET /birthdays controllers.Application.method(from: Long, to: Long)
You can also give some default value, in case API doesn't contain these query params it will automatically assign the default values to these params
GET /birthdays controllers.Application.method(from: Long ?= 0, to: Long ?= 10)
In method written inside controller Application these params will have value null if no default values assigned else default values.
My way of doing this involves using a custom QueryStringBindable. This way I express parameters in routes as:
GET /birthdays/ controllers.Birthdays.getBirthdays(period: util.Period)
The code for Period looks like this.
public class Period implements QueryStringBindable<Period> {
public static final String PATTERN = "dd.MM.yyyy";
public Date start;
public Date end;
#Override
public F.Option<Period> bind(String key, Map<String, String[]> data) {
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(PATTERN);
try {
start = data.containsKey("startDate")?sdf.parse(data.get("startDate") [0]):null;
end = data.containsKey("endDate")?sdf.parse(data.get("endDate")[0]):null;
} catch (ParseException ignored) {
return F.Option.None();
}
return F.Option.Some(this);
}
#Override
public String unbind(String key) {
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(PATTERN);
return "startDate=" + sdf.format(start) + "&" + "endDate=" + sdf.format(end);
}
#Override
public String javascriptUnbind() {
return null;
}
public void applyDateFilter(ExpressionList el) {
if (this.start != null)
el.ge("eventDate", this.start);
if (this.end != null)
el.le("eventDate", new DateTime(this.end.getTime()).plusDays(1).toDate());
}
}
applyDateFilter is just a convienence method i use in my controllers if I want to apply date filtering to the query. Obviously you could use other date defaults here, or use some other default than null for start and end date in the bind method.

How do I get EF to persist empty strings as NULL?

In my domain, there's no important distinction between NULL and an empty string. How do I get EF to ignore the difference between the two and always persist an empty string as NULL?
Empty string is not default value for string property so it means your code is setting empty strings somewhere. In such case it is your responsibility to handle it.
If you are using code first with POCOs you can use custom setter:
private string _myProperty;
public string MyProperty
{
get { return _myProperty; }
set
{
if (value == String.Empty)
{
_myProperty = null;
}
else
{
_myProperty = value;
}
}
}
Here is a function I placed in my DbContext subclass that replaces empty or whitespace strings with null.
I still didn't optimize it so any performance hints will be very appreciated.
private const string StringType = "String";
private const EntityState SavingState = EntityState.Added | EntityState.Modified;
public override int SaveChanges()
{
var objectContext = ((IObjectContextAdapter)this).ObjectContext;
var savingEntries =
objectContext.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(SavingState);
foreach (var entry in savingEntries)
{
var curValues = entry.CurrentValues;
var fieldMetadata = curValues.DataRecordInfo.FieldMetadata;
var stringFields = fieldMetadata.Where(f =>
f.FieldType.TypeUsage.EdmType.Name == StringType);
foreach (var stringField in stringFields)
{
var ordinal = stringField.Ordinal;
var curValue = curValues[ordinal] as string;
if (curValue != null && curValue.All(char.IsWhiteSpace))
curValues.SetValue(ordinal, null);
}
}
return base.SaveChanges();
}
Optimization considerations:
Identify a string type property by different way other than string comparison I tried to look-up some enumeration of the built-in types but didn't find
Cache string fields for types (maybe is unnecessary, will have to decompile and see what the original impl does
Order result by entity type, backup iterated entity type, if next iterated entity is same type, use previous metadata, again, if the metadata is anyway there, performance is cheaper the way it is
Limit string length for whitespace check - i.e. if a string length > x, skip checking whether its a whitespace string or not
I'm using Silverlight and the TextBoxes in the UI set all the string properties to empty strings.
I tried setting:
<TextBox
Text="{Binding MyStringProperty,
Mode=TwoWay,
ValidatesOnDataErrors=True,
TargetNullValue=''}"/>
But it didn't help much.
That's not Entity Framework's job.
You should do it in your repository, or in the database with triggers.
Or do it at the start (e.g when the data comes in, UI, external source, etc)