On 1/17/08 9:47 AM, "Michael Gentry" <blacknex..mail.com> wrote:
> Ari, I was going to mention on the other thread (with Kevin) that it
> would be nice if you could map the enumerated values in Cayenne
> Modeler. I believe Andrus even mentioned keeping the mapping in the
> XML files, too. The modeler could generate the code for the enums,
> too, as you said. This would free the user from having to write the
> boilerplate code themselves. I still see needing two types of
> enumerations -- integer and string based values. I can't really see
> the need for floating point values at this time.
Yes, what Ari mentioned sounds nice.
I could see value in "composite" enums as well, though. I can't think of a
better term, but they're basically enums with fields that could then be
mapped to DB columns.
For example, we use FedEx to process our shipments. The FedEx API has codes
for each service, but the codes are not really in a suitable form for a
customer. So, we store the code and the textual description as two columns
in the table. The set of values is largely fixed, but as we offer new
shipping methods (e.g., we started offering USPS), we added more rows to the
table.
It'd be nice if there were a way to map the rows in that table as enum
instances (Java5 or otherwise) automatically. The code could be
considerably simplified (I'm a big fan of switching with Java5 enums), but
maintain the flexibility of a DB backend.
I'm acutely aware that this is likely a pipedream though, given the invasive
nature of it all.
-- Kevin
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