event-bean with ORM?

[Mike Rogers]

All,

I've been looking over the tickets and documentation for the mach-ii
event-bean config tag, and I was wondering if an extra attribute would
have any value:

<event-bean name="user" type="project.model.User" factory-
method="newUser"/>

My project is using Transfer, and my Model is a thin proxy over
Transfer. For example, project.model.User has the getNewUser() method
which returns transfer.new("project.User"), and saveUser() takes a
TransferObject as an argument and runs transfer.save(arguments.user).
Fairly straightforward, but it completely abstracts away the ORM.

I was also wondering whether I'm 'correct' in my desire to use ORM
objects as event-beans, or whether I should be creating beans
specifically for form interaction and using a transformation method to
populate the ORM objects, probably in the Listener. This approach
seems like it would require a lot of extra code over my ORM/Event dual
beans.

Thoughts?

I apologize for the rambling tone. If I need to clarify something
please let me know.

Thanks,

-Mike Rogers

[Jorge Loyo]

Mike,

I also use Transfer and I've been using a filter to create the
transfer bean and put it in the event scope. I think that there was
some discussion about in the future possibly supporting factories, but
I can't recall exactly where that talk ended. I would definitely be
interested in having something like this.

[Mike Rogers]

That's a fantastic idea. Since I'm using ColdSpring as well as
Transfer (and all my Transfer proxies are defined in ColdSpring), I
wrote the following little filter to put a ColdSpring bean (grabbed
via factory method discussed in my previous email) into the event
object. Not sure how useful it is to anyone but me, but I figured I'd
throw it out there anyway:

<cfcomponent displayname="CreateColdSpringEventBeanFilter"
extends="MachII.framework.EventFilter"
output="false"
hint="Uses a factory/facade method to put an empty bean into the
event">

<!--- INITIALIZATION / CONFIGURATION --->
<cffunction name="configure" access="public" returntype="void"
output="false"
hint="Configures the filter.">
<!--- Put custom configuration for this filter here. --->
</cffunction>

<!--- PUBLIC FUNCTIONS --->
<cffunction name="filterEvent" access="public" returntype="boolean"
output="false"
hint="I am invoked by the Mach II framework.">
<cfargument name="event" type="MachII.framework.Event"
required="true"
hint="I am the current event object created by the Mach II
framework." />
<cfargument name="eventContext"
type="MachII.framework.EventContext" required="true"
hint="I am the current event context object created by the Mach II
framework." />
<cfargument name="paramArgs" type="struct" required="false"
default="#structNew()#"
hint="I am the structure containing the parameters specified in the
filter invocation in mach-ii.xml." />

<cfset var bean = paramArgs.bean />
<cfset var beanName = paramArgs.name />

<cfset var propManager = eventContext.getAppManager
().getPropertyManager() />
<cfset var csProp = propManager.getProperty("coldspringProperty") /
>

<cfset var eventBean = '' />
<cfset var beanFactory = '' />

<cfif IsStruct(csProp)>
<cfset beanFactory = getProperty(csProp.getParameter
("beanFactoryPropertyName")) />
<cfif IsStruct(beanFactory) AND StructKeyExists(beanFactory,
"getBean" )>
<cfset eventBean = beanFactory.getBean(bean) />
</cfif>
</cfif>

<cfset event.setArg(beanName, eventBean) />

<cfreturn true/>
</cffunction>

</cfcomponent>


Here's an example from mach-ii.xml:

<event-handler event="login.action" access="public">
<event-mapping event="pass" mapping="main.redirect"/>
<event-mapping event="fail" mapping="home.redirect"/>
<filter name="createColdSpringEventBeanFilter">
<parameter name="bean" value="blankUserObject"/>
<parameter name="name" value="user"/>
</filter>
<event-bean name="user" type="@cf.app.root@.model.UserModel"
reinit="false"
fields="email,password"/>
<notify listener="userListener" method="login"/>
</event-handler>

If anyone finds this helpful please let me know. I don't want to fill
up the group with useless garbage!

Thanks,

-Mike Rogers

[Peter J. Farrell]

Mike,

This topic would make a great addition to the wiki.  Would you do us the favor of writing a short entry with your code as well?

Best,
.Peter

Mike Rogers said the following on 10/27/2009 02:34 PM:

[Kurt Wiersma]

Another way to solve this would be use the new call-method command
which lets you call out to a service from a ColdSpring bean factory
and place the result in the event scope where the event-bean command
can access it. I think it makes more sense to use either this method
or the filter method rather then baking something more limited into
the event-bean command. If you try either of these out and run into
problems let us know.

--Kurt

[Mike Rogers]

I've replaced the following code:

<filter name="createColdSPringEventBeanFilter">

<parameter name="bean" value="blankUserObject"/>
<parameter name="name" value="user"/>
</filter>

... with ...

<call-method bean="userModel" method="getNewLogin"
resultArg="user"/>

... and the code is throwing an error: A call-method commands was
encountered that did not have a bean named
'cfCallMethodCommand2ecfc1771628066$funcGETBEANID@3e77f8' autowired
into it.

"Autowired to it" is a phrase I found on the Call-Method M2SFP page
(http://greatbiztoolsllc.trac.cvsdude.com/mach-ii/wiki/
MachII1.8CallMethodCommand) in a comment by Peter: "Call-method will
call anything that get's auto-wired into it so if say in this example
it is in a ColdSpring bean factory -- it can be loaded into the call-
method command".

Apparently I'm missing some sort of auto-wiring, but I haven't found
this in any docs. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

-Mike Rogers

[Peter J. Farrell]

Doesn't look like your CS managed beans are being auto-wired into the call-method.  Are you using the ColdSpringProperty that is bundled *with* Mach-II (not the CS package).  I would bet the ColdSpring property you're using is the one in the ColdSpring bundle.  You'll need to use the one bundled with Mach-II.

Also, is there a bean with the "id" of "UserModel" in your ColdSpring config file?

.pjf

Mike Rogers said the following on 10/27/2009 08:47 PM:

[Peter J. Farrell]

If my suggestions don't fix it, I'll need a stack trace or a snapshot of exception you're getting.

.pjf

Peter J. Farrell said the following on 10/27/2009 09:02 PM:

[Jorge Loyo]

Hi all,

I also have a filter that looks into the relationships of a transfer
object and creates the object with the associations. I use this filter
instead of the <event-bean> to include my transfer objects in the
event scope.

Would anyone be interested in the .CFC to perhaps compare all
different approaches and possibly combine solutions into one more
complete one?