I have an Open JPA entity and it successfully connects a many-to-many relationship. Right now I successfully get the entire table, but I really only want the ID's from that tables. I plan on calling the database later to reconstruct the entities that I need (according to the flow of my program).
I need only the ID's (or one column from that table).
1) Should I try and restrict this in my entity beans, or in the stateless session beans that I will be using to call the entity beans
2) If I try and do this using JPA, how can I specify that I only get back the ID's from the table, instead of the whole table? So far looking online, I don't see a way that you can do this. So I am guessing there is no way to do this.
3) If I simply just manipulate the return values, should I create a separate class that I will be returning to the user that will return only the required id list to the user?
I could be completely wrong here, but from the looks of it, I don't think there is a simple way to do this using JPA and I will have to return a custom object instead of the entity bean to the user (this custom object would only hold the id's as opposed to the whole table as it currently does)
Any thoughts... I don't think this is really relevant, but people are always asking for code, so here you go...
#ManyToMany(fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinTable(name="QUICK_LAUNCH_DISTLIST",
joinColumns=#JoinColumn(name="QUICK_LAUNCH_ID"),
inverseJoinColumns=#JoinColumn(name="LIST_ID"))
private List<DistributionList> distributionlistList;
Currently how I get the entire collection of records. Remember I only want the id...
try
{
//int daSize = 0;
//System.out.println("Testing 1.2..3...! ");
qlList = emf.createNamedQuery("getQuickLaunch").getResultList();
}
This is how I call the Entity beans. I am thinking this is where I will have to programatically go through and create a custom object similar to the entity bean (but it just has the ID's and not the whole table, and attempt to put the id's in there somewhere.
What are your thoughts?
Thanks
I believe I just figured out the best solution to this problem.
This link would be the answer:
my other stack overflow answer post
But for the sake of those too lazy to click on the link I essentially used the #ElementCollection attribute...
#ElementCollection(fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
#CollectionTable(name="QUICK_LAUNCH_DISTLIST",joinColumns=#JoinColumn(name="QUICK_LAUNCH_ID"))
#Column(name="LIST_ID")
private List<Long> distListIDs;
That did it.
Sounds like you want something like this in your quickLaunch class:
#Transient
public List<Integer> getDistributionListIds () {
List<Integer> distributionListIds = new LinkedList<Integer>();
List<DistributionList> distributionlistList = getDistributionlistList();
if (distributionlistList != null) {
for (DistributionList distributionList : distributionlistList)
distributionListIds.add(distributionList.getId());
}
return distributionListIds;
}
I had to guess a little at the names of your getters/setters and the type of DistributionList's ID. But basically, JPA is already nicely handling all of the relationships for you, so just take the values you want from the related objects.
Related
I am trying to come up with a way of implementing tags for my entity that works well for me and need some help in the process. Let me write down some requirements I have in mind:
Firstly, I would like tags to show in entities as a list of strings like this:
{
"tags": ["foo", "bar"]
}
Secondly, I need to be able to retrieve a set of available tags across all entities so that users can easily choose from existing tags.
The 2nd requirement could be achieved by creating a Tag entity with the value of the Tag as the #Id. But that would make the tags property in my entity a relation that requires an extra GET operation to fetch. I could work with a getter method that resolves all the Tags and returns only a list of strings, but I see two disadvantages in that: 1. The representation as a list of strings suggests you could store tags by POSTing them in that way which is not the case. 2. The process of creating an entity requires to create all the Tags via a /tags endpoint first. That seem rather complicated for such a simple thing.
Also, I think I read somewhere that you shouldn't create a repository for an entity that isn't standalone. Would I create a Tag and only a Tag at any point in time? Nope.
I could store the tags as an #ElementCollection in my entity. In this case I don't know how to fulfill the 2nd requirement, though.
#ElementCollection
private Set<String> tags;
I made a simple test via EntityManager but it looks like I cannot query things that are not an #Entity in a result set.
#RestController
#RequestMapping("/tagList")
#RequiredArgsConstructor(onConstructor = #__(#Autowired))
public class TagListController implements RepresentationModelProcessor<RepositoryLinksResource> {
#PersistenceContext
private final #NonNull EntityManager entityManager;
#RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public ResponseEntity<EntityModel<TagList>> get() {
System.out.println(entityManager.createQuery("SELECT t.tags FROM Training t").getFirstResult());
EntityModel<TagList> model = EntityModel.of(new TagList(Set.of("foo", "bar")));
model.add(linkTo(methodOn(TagListController.class).get()).withSelfRel());
return ResponseEntity.ok(model);
}
}
org.hibernate.QueryException: not an entity
Does anyone know a smart way?
The representation as a list of strings suggests you could store tags by POSTing them in that way which is not the case
This is precisely the issue with using entities as REST resource representations. They work fine until it turns out the internal representation (entity) does not match the external representation (the missing DTO).
However, it would probably make most sense performance-wise to simply use an #ElementCollection like you mentioned, because you then don't have the double join with a join table for the many-to-many association (you could also use a one-to-many association where the parent entity and the tag value are both part of the #Id to avoid a join table, but I'm not sure it's convenient to work with. Probably better to just put a UNIQUE(parent_id, TAG) constraint on the collection table, if you need it). Regarding the not an entity error, you would need to use a native query. Assuming that you have #ElementCollection #CollectionTable(name = "TAGS") #Column(name = "TAG") on tags, then SELECT DISTINCT(TAG) FROM TAGS should do the job.
(as a side note, the DISTINCT part of the query will surely introduce some performance penalty, but I would assume the result of that query is a good candidate for caching)
I have a two aggregate roots in my domain, and therefore two repositories. We'll call them BookRepository, and AuthorRepository, for the sake of example.
I'm designing an MVC application, and one page has to display a table containing a list of authors, with each row showing the author's personal details. At the end of each row is a small button that can be clicked to expand the row and show a child table detailing the author's published books.
When the page loads, some ajax is executed to retrieve the Author details from an API controller and display the data in the table. Each property in an Author object maps almost directly to a column, with one exception, and this is where I'm having my problem. I want the button at the end of each row to be disabled, if and only if the author has no published books. This means that a boolean has to returned with each Author record, indicating if they have any published books.
My book repository has a couple of methods like this:
public IEnumerable<Book> GetBooksForAuthor(int authorId);
public bool AnyBooksForAuthor(int authorId);
and my Book class has a property called AuthorId, so I can retrieve a book's author by calling
authorRepository.GetById(book.AuthorId);
My problem is that in order to create a row for my aforementioned table, I need to create it like this:
IEnumerable<Author> authors = authorRepository.GetAll();
foreach (Author author in authors)
{
yield return new AuthorTableRow
{
Name = author.Name,
Age = author.Age,
Location = author.PlaceOfResidence.Name,
HasBooks = this.bookRepository.AnyBooksForAuthor(author.Id)
};
}
The above code seems correct, but there's a fairly heft performance penalty in calling this.bookRepository.AnyBooksForAuthor(author.Id) for every single author, because it performs a database call each time.
Ideally, I suppose I would want an AuthorTableRowRepository which could perform something like the following:
public IEnumerable<AuthorTableRow> GetAll()
{
return from a in this.dbContext.Authors
select new AuthorTableRow
{
Name = a.Name,
Age = a.Age,
Location a.PlaceOfResidence.Name
HasBooks = a.Books.Any()
});
}
I'm hesitant to put this in place for these reasons :
AuthorTableRowRepository is a repository of AuthorTableRows, but AuthorTable row is not a domain object, nor an aggregate root, and therefore should not have its own repository.
As Author and Book are both aggregate roots, I removed the "Books" property from the Author entity, because I wanted the only way to retrieve books to be via the BookRepository. This makes HasBooks = a.Books.Any() impossible. I am unsure whether I am imposing my own misguided best practice here though. It seems wrong to obtain Books by obtaining an Author via the AuthorRepository and then going through its Books property, and vice versa in obtaining an Author via a property on a Book object. Crossing aggregate root boundaries would be the way I'd term it, I suppose?
How would other people solve this? Are my concerns unfounded? I am mostly concerned about the (what should be a) performance hit in the first method, but I want to adhere to best practice with the Repository pattern and DDD.
I would stick to the first approach, but try to optimize things in the bookrepository method. For instance, you can load this information all in one time, and use in-memory lookup to speed this up. Like this you would need 2 queries, and not 1 for each author.
The way I solved this in the end was to create an Entity from a view in the database. I named the entity 'AuthorSummary', and made an AuthorSummaryRepository that didn't contain any Add() methods, just retrieval methods.
I have a legacy database with a particular table -- I will call it ItemTable -- that can have billions of rows of data. To overcome database restrictions, we have decided to split the table into "silos" whenever the number of rows reaches 100,000,000. So, ItemTable will exist, then a procedure will run in the middle of the night to check the number of rows. If numberOfRows is > 100,000,000 then silo1_ItemTable will be created. Any Items added to the database from now on will be added to silo1_ItemTable (until it grows to big, then silo2_ItemTable will exist...)
ItemTable and silo1_ItemTable can be mapped to the same Item entity because the table structures are identical, but I am not sure how to set this mapping up at runtime, or how to specify the table name for my queries. All inserts should be added to the latest siloX_ItemTable, and all Reads should be from a specified siloX_ItemTable.
I have a separate siloTracker table that will give me the table name to insert/read the data from, but I am not sure how I can use this with entity framework...
Thoughts?
You could try to use the Entity Inheritance to get this. So you have a base class which has all the fields mapped to ItemTable and then you have descendant classes that inherit from ItemTable entity and is mapped to the silo tables in the db. Every time you create a new silo you create a new entity mapped to that silo table.
[Table("ItemTable")]
public class Item
{
//All the fields in the table goes here
}
[Table("silo1_ItemTable")]
public class Silo1Item : Item
{
}
[Table("silo2_ItemTable")]
public class Silo2Item : Item
{
}
You can find more information on this here
Other option is to create a view that creates a union of all those table and map your entity to that view.
As mentioned in my comment, to solve this problem I am using the SQLQuery method that is exposed by DBSet. Since all my item tables have the exact same schema, I can use the SQLQuery to define my own query and I can pass in the name of the table to the query. Tested on my system and it is working well.
See this link for an explanation of running raw queries with entity framework:
EF raw query documentation
If anyone has a better way to solve my question, please leave a comment.
[UPDATE]
I agree that stored procedures are also a great option, but for some reason my management is very resistant to make any changes to our database. It is easier for me (and our customers) to put the sql in code and acknowledge the fact that there is raw sql. At least I can hide it from the other layers rather easily.
[/UPDATE]
Possible solution for this problem may be using context initialization with DbCompiledModel param:
var builder = new DbModelBuilder(DbModelBuilderVersion.V6_0);
builder.Configurations.Add(new EntityTypeConfiguration<EntityName>());
builder.Entity<EntityName>().ToTable("TableNameDefinedInRuntime");
var dynamicContext = new MyDbContext(builder.Build(context.Database.Connection).Compile());
For some reason in EF6 it fails on second table request, but mapping inside context looks correct on the moment of execution.
I'm pretty new to the Entity framework and I'm modelling this simple structure:
With this model what I have is a Users class with a property UsersGroups (a collection of UserGroups objects).
I would like to have a Users class with a property like Groups with type Tuple or something like this (a new PriorizedGroup class, etc) that is much more related with the bussines.
Is this possible with the Entity framework?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: If I were modeling the bussines objects I would create a User class with a Groups property that contained all the groups the user pertains with an extra property to store its priority (with a tuple, with an inherited class, as you wish). The thing is that I feel that the objects created by the Entity framework resemble the SQL structure, not the business structure.
Not directly. EF can map the relation only in the way you see it at the moment but you can add your custom behavior to your partial part of the entity. The simple way is something like
public partial class Users
{
public IEnumerable<PrioritizedGroup> Groups
{
get
{
return UserGroups.Select(ug => new PrioritizedGroup
{
Priority = ug.Priority,
Id = ug.Group.Id,
Name = ug.Group.Name,
Description = ug.Group.Description
})
.OrderBy(g => g.Priority);
}
}
}
To make this happen directly in EF you need some advanced mapping technique which will require you to modify EDMX source code directly (either DefiningQuery or QueryView) and it will make the entity read only (you will need stored procedures for modification).
To make the collection exposed on Users updatable you would probably need to use ObservableCollection and transfer all modifications triggered by ObservableCollection back to original UserGroups collection. Once you have something like that implemented you can hide original collection.
I've used WCF RIA services with Entity Framework to build a simple application which can display and updates data about school courses. This was done by following the Microsoft tutorials. Now I would like to have a chart which shows a count for how many courses are on a key stage.
Example:
Key Stage 3 - 20 courses
Key Stage 4 - 32 courses
Key Stage 5 - 12 courses
Displayed on any form of chart. I have no problem binding data to the chart in XAML. My problem is that I do not know how to correct way of getting the data into that format. The generated CRUD methods are basic.
I have a few thoughts about possible ways, but don't know which is correct, they are:
Create a View in SQL server and map this to a separate Entity in the Entity Data Model. Generating new CRUD methods for this automatically.
Customise the read method in the existing DomainService using .Select() .Distinct() etc. Don't know this syntax very well labda expressions/LINQ??? what is it? Any good quickstarts on it?
Create a new class to store only the data required and create a read method for it. Tried this but didn't know how to make it work without a matching entity in the entity model.
Something I am not aware of.
I'm very new to this and struggling with the concepts so if there are useful blogs or documentation I've missed feel free to point me towards them. But I'm unsure of the terminology to use in my searches at the moment.
One way to is to build a model class. A model is a class that represents the data you wish to display. For example i might have a table with 10 fields but i only need to display 2. Create a model with these two properties and return that from your data layer.
you can use entity framework to pump data into a new class like so
Model Class:
public class Kitteh
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}
Entity Query:
public Iqueryable<Kitteh> getKittehz
{
var result = from x in Data.TblCats
select new Kitteh
{
Name = x.Name,
Age = x.Age
}
return result;
}
If you are interested in the best practices approach to building silverlight applications I would suggest you research the MVVM pattern.
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/silverlight-4-videos/mvvm-introduction/
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/silverlight-4/using-the-mvvm-pattern-in-silverlight-applications/
I am attempting a similar piece of work.
I will tell you the approach I am going to use and maybe that can help you.
I am going to create a class in the silverlight project to describe the chartItem: It will have 2 string properties : Key and Value.
Then create a collection object...In your case, this could be a class that has one property of type Dictionary<string,string> myCollection... or ObservableCollection<ChartItem> myCollection
The next step is to do a ForEach loop on the data coming back from the server and Add to your Collection.
myCollection.Add(new chartItem{ Key= "Key Stage 3", Value = "20 Courses" });
myCollection.Add(new chartItem{ Key= "Key Stage 4", Value = "60 Courses" });
myCollection.Add(new chartItem{ Key= "Key Stage 5", Value = "10 Courses" });
... more to follow if you are still looking for an answer
There is no easy way to include Views in Entity Framework as it does not allow any table/view to be included without "Key" (PrimaryKey) which will cause more efforts as you will have to map view manually in EDMX and then map keys etc.
Now we have found out an alternative approach,
Create View called ChartItems in your DB
Create LinqToSQL file ViewDB
Drag View ChartItems in ViewDB
Create ChartItem[] GetChartItems method in your RIA Domain Service Class as follow
public ChartItem[] GetChartItems(..parameters...){
ViewDB db = new ViewDB();
return db.ChartItems.Where(...query mapping...).ToArray();
}
RIA Domain Service Class can contain any arbitrary method that you can directly invoke from client with parameters. It is as simple as calling a web service. And you have to return an array because IQueryable may or may not work in some cases, but we prefer Array. You can try IQueryable but it may not work correctly against linq to SQL.