I am thinking of redefining one of the mapping assumptions that was in Cayenne since day one. In 3.2 I want to move attribute java type from ObjAttribute to DbAttribute. The goal of this change is to improve consistency of the runtime model. Current separation of Java and DB attribute types causes a whole class of bugs and a whole class of hacks in the framework.
E.g.: 1. Unrecognized non-standard type mapping. This one is discussed at the moment on the user list [1]. I suspect it has nothing to do with "custom" types, but rather with non-JDBC default mapping of DB data to Java, regardless of the Java type. 2. Hacks to recognize non-standard type mapping. When creating a DataRow, Cayenne would try to guess which ObjEntities might use this DataRow, and populate DataRows with values corresponding to the ObjAttribute type definitions. This clearly breaks layer separation - lower layers have to know too much about the higher layers of the stack. Besides it doesn't always work anyways - see #3. 3. Extra mapping "flexibility" that doesn't really work. We had past Jiras when the same column is mapped to different Java types in 2 different subclasses, creating a mess in subclass-agnostic DataRows. This is not a full list of problems, but gives you some idea. I am hoping the suggested change would tie things up and leave no space for ambiguities. Comments? Andrus [1] http://markmail.org/message/6bs2suislyfp3apk
