I have a neta data driven application generator which I am currently porting from CF5 to CFMX7, so I'm considering similar issues. I think you need to consider two things: performance and DRY (don't repeat yourself).
Is the meta data going to be anywhere else? You only want to store and given piece of meta data in one place otherwise you have to remember to update the copies. In terms of performance, what will be the performance hit generating the form fields using the form meta data at runtime? If you need better performance you may need to pre-generate things like the form fields to save all of the field concatenation of HTML (side hint - for concatenation, use arrays and then array to string - supposed to perform much faster). Alternatively, use lazy instantiation and application scopes so if you have to do the extra work only do it once per application rather than per session or per page request. You could use an XML file, but with the file operation and the deserialization of the XML, I'd make sure you application scope it (so if there is a huge amount of data this may not work out well, but for most applications it wouldn't be a problem). Best Wishes, Peter -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael T. Tangorre Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 8:13 AM To: CFCDev@cfczone.org Subject: [CFCDev] Bean / Meta Data In my Bean CFCs I have the standard methods: getSomeProperty(), setSomeProperty(), getInstance(), setInstance(), and validate(). What I am toying with is "how much" data/meta data should/could I store about the properties within the bean and how much (if any) might be better suited for "properties file" such as an XML file. What would be nice is to have some meta data about the properties themselves for different purposes: form element attributes: maxlength,id,name,label cfqueryparam attributes: maxlength,null (evaluate expression), cfsqltype javascript validation server side validation (within the Bean's validate method) My question is... how much of this "meta data" would/could/should be stored in the Bean itself and how much would be better suited for a properties file of some sorts... and is all this even worth it? Say for instance, a required field changes or a field's maxlength increases from 500 characters to 1000, it would be nice to denote that in one area and have that piece of meta data accessible anywhere the property is used. Is all this overkill? I haven't implemented anything yet but I can definitely see some benefit of doing so. Your thoughts? Tango. ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to cfcdev@cfczone.org with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to cfcdev@cfczone.org with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org
