On 05/12/2008, at 12:28 AM, Andrus Adamchik wrote:
Nice. I don't think it is complete to actually use it for the real
map validation, but this is a great start.
Well, it validates several maps I throw at it. I haven't compared it
to the code, but I did try to generate various maps and couldn't break
it. I'm interested if people could try to validate their maps against
it and find any breakages.
I guess the immediate value of it is documenting the format for
manual editing.
That's certainly helpful.
Now I am wondering where in the model lifecycle during development
and runtime would it be appropriate/useful to do automated
validation of the mapping? In other words where the benefit of
validation would justify the overhead? The map semantical problems
are rare, as most people are using the Modeler (that presumably
generates a correct mapping).
That may be the case, but if we don't have the modeler check for
validity on every save, the schema will not be maintained since there
is no incentive to do so and it will fall into disrepair. I'd suggest
a validation on every save/open which does not prevent the save/open
but shows a dialog if validation is not successful.
I'd suggest this is useful since some people edit the XML by hand
(long live 'emacs/vi'!) but still would like Cayenne modeler to
validate their schema. It will also provide a second level check that
Cayenne modeler isn't outputting rubbish XML under some circumstances
(eg. XML which isn't properly encoded or nested incorrectly).
So I can only think of cases that would help us internally, but will
not affect the end users:
* Validation as a part of map-saving unit tests
* Switching from manual XML parser to an auto-generated parser based
on schema (such as JAXB; although I decided against JAXB some time
ago, as it would add yet another hard dependency to Cayenne, and
will require a rewrite of a piece of Cayenne that already works
well. So I am just using it as an example).
I agree that there is little benefit in this.
Ari
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