I came across a particular situation that impacts on the wording for the text
to go in the spec for precedence of XML and Annotation metadata.
I have :-
@PersistenceCapable
public class MyClass
{
@PrimaryKey
long id;
@Persistent
String name;
...
}
Question : Should we allow users to override the setting of "primary-key" in
XML when it is defined in the annotations ? or should the setting in the
annotations for which field(s) are PK be fixed ?
The problem comes in how to merge the value in annotations and value in XML.
With XML, due to the DTD/XSD, there will always be a value for "primary-key".
With annotations it will have a value only if the user provided one.
If we allow overrides via XML, then we must just take any value from XML
(since there is always a value when read in). This impacts on what a user has
to specify when overriding any information in XML. For example, if the user
wanted to override some info about the above class they would have to specify
the "primary-key" values correctly to make sure that they were respected (if
they didn't specify the "primary-key" element then they get the DTD default
of "false"!) hence duplicate definition.
My conclusion is that we should prohibit the override of "primary-key" when
the annotations have explicitly set the value. If annotations haven't set the
value then the value in XML should be respected.
Anyone disagree ?
--
Andy (Java Persistent Objects - http://www.jpox.org)
