Best practice confirm data changes of second perosn - java

I'm looking for the best practice/ design pattern to permit changes on data in a database.
The requirement is that a person A want to update some data. For example email, address or company name. All the changes from person A are not visible on the webpage until Person B check these changes and confirm that. The data are stored in a database.
My question is now what is the best practice/ design pattern for the database? Duplicate the database and copy the data by commit to the other? Only one database and copy the whole dataset with the changed value and tag in that extra column(has to check).
I tried to find something with Google, but I think I don't use the right buzzwords.
My only buzzword was four eyes principal and a solution was workflow engine like camunda or to use dms or ecm.
There has to be simple solution for that problem or is that problem so uncommon?
Thanks for help.
PS.: the user change the data on a website, not directly in the database.

You have to design a data structure such as "generic order" or "generic job". Here you will have a master table that describes a job or an order. The fields would be:
job_id
created_at
created_by
job_ident
job_name
permit_at
permit_by
Any job/order has a key/value set of data. Which would be modeled like this:
job_id (fk_job_id)
key
value
Every job must have an implementation. So the interpretation of the key value pairs is up to this implementation. The implementation would be triggered by a user as he permits the changes associated with the current job or order.
The generic model allows you to have one data structure regardless of any table your application has.
You can also draw some inspiration from transaction logs of a database. Please note, that changes have an order to it. So you can detect conflicts.
However you can enhance the data structure above to lock an entity until approval.
You can also have a look on spring-batch where there is a similar data structure and processing.
Please see the apache camel project. Maybe you can use apache-camel as well.

Related

What is the DDD way to make sure that there is only one obj created with 2 attribute combinations

im pretty new to the whole DDD concept and i have the following question:
Lets say i have a UI where Users can save cars by putting in a id and a name. What is the DDD way to make sure that every unique id and name combination is only created once. The cars are all Entities and will be stored in a database. Usually i would just have put a primary and a foriegn key in a DB and just check if the combination is already there and if not create/store the obj and if there is the same combination then don´t.
Now i´m thinking if this is domain logic or just a simple CRUD. If it is domain logic and if i udnerstood correctly i should make my car object decide if it is valid or not. If thats the case how would i do that?
thanks in advance!
edit:
another thing: What if every created object should be deleted after 10 days. That would be a concept in the domain and would hence be also part of the domain logic. But how should the Object know when to delete itself and how should it do it? Would that be a domain service that checks the creation date of the objects and if it is older than 10 days it should perform a delete operation inside the DB?
I would go with a UNIQUE constraints on the 2 fields if you don't care about the validity of the values entered. That way even if someone, for some reasons, inserts/updates the records directly in the DB, the DB will prevent it.
If you care about the validity of the combined values entered, then you will have to add on top of that some logic in your code before saving it in the DB.
About your deletion mechanism, you can have a scheduler that check every day what are the data older than 10 days by checking a previously filled DB column (eg CREATED_ON) and delete them.
"It depends".
If id and name are immutable properties that are assigned at the beginning of the objects lifetime, then the straight forward thing to do is incorporate them into the key that you use to look up the aggregate.
car = Garage.get(id, name)
If instead what you have is a relation that changes over time (for instance, if you have to worry about name being corrupted by a data entry error) then things become more complicated.
The general term for the problem you are describing is set-validation. And the riddle is this: in order to reliably verify that a set has some property, you need to know that the property doesn't change between when you check it and when you commit your own change. In other words, you need to be able to lock the entire set.
Expressed more generally, the set is a collection of associated objects that we treat as a unit for the purpose of data changes. And we have a name for that pattern: aggregate.
So "the registry of names" becomes an aggregate in its own right - something that you can load, modify, store, and so on.
In some cases, it can make sense to partition that into smaller aggregates ("the set of things named Bob") - that reduces the amount of data you need to load/store when managing the aggregate itself, but adds some complexity to the use case when you change a name.
Is this "better" than the answer of just using database constraints? It depends on which side of the trade off you value more -- enforcing part of the domain invariant in the domain model and part of it in the data store adds complexity. Also, when you start leaning on the data store to enforce part of the invariant, you begin to limit your choices of what data store to use.

Audit Using Hibernate Envers

I am using hibernate envers for making history of my data, it's working fine as well. The problem here is, it's creating duplicate data in history table i.e. creating data in history table whether there is any change in audited table or not. I want only changed fields stored in my history table. I am new to hibernate envers. What can I do?
If I understand your question correctly, Envers doesn't work that way, at least not out of the box.
Envers is a commit-snapshot auditing solution where just before commit, it examines audited entity state and determines whether any attributes have been modified or not and records a snapshot of all audited fields of that entity at that point in time. This means that the only time an audit entry isn't created is when no attributes have been modified.
But it also uses the snapshot approach because it fits really well with the Query API.
Consider the inefficiency that would occur if a query to find an entity at a given revision had to read all rows from that revision back to the beginning of time, iterating each row and merging the column state captured to just instantiate a single row result-set.
With the snapshot approach, it boils down to the following query, no loops or iterative work.
SELECT e FROM AuditedEntity e WHERE e.revisionNumber = :revisionNumber
This is far more efficient from a I/O perspective both with the database reading the data pages and the network for streaming a single row result-set rather than multi-row result-set to the client.
I'd say in this case, the saying "space is cheap" really holds true when you compare that against the cost and inefficiencies your application would face doing it any other way.
If this is something you'd like Envers to support, perhaps via some user configured strategy then you're welcomed to log a new feature request in JIRA for hibernate-envers and I can take a look at its feasibility.
I had similar problem.
In my case the error was that audited field had higher precision than the database field. Please see my reply to another thread: https://stackoverflow.com/a/65844949/13381019

keeping the history of table in java

I need the sample program in Java for keeping the history of table if user inserted, updated and deleted on that table. Can anybody help in this?
Thanks in advance.
If you are working with Hibernate you can use Envers to solve this problem.
You have two options for this:
Let the database handle this automatically using triggers. I don't know what database you're using but all of them support triggers that you can use for this.
Write code in your program that does something similar when inserting, updating and deleting a user.
Personally, I prefer the first option. It probably requires less maintenance. There may be multiple places where you update a user, all those places need the code to update the other table. Besides, in the database you have more options for specifying required values and integrity constraints.
Well, we normally have our own history tables which (mostly) look like the original table. Since most of our tables already have the creation date, modification date and the respective users, all we need to do is copy the dataset from the live table to the history table with a creation date of now().
We're using Hibernate so this could be done in an interceptor, but there may be other options as well, e.g. some database trigger executing a script, etc.
How is this a Java question?
This should be moved in Database section.
You need to create a history table. Then create database triggers on the original table for "create or replace trigger before insert or update or delete on table for each row ...."
I think this can be achieved by creating a trigger in the sql-server.
you can create the TRIGGER as follows:
Syntax:
CREATE TRIGGER trigger_name
{BEFORE | AFTER } {INSERT | UPDATE |
DELETE } ON table_name FOR EACH ROW
triggered_statement
you'll have to create 2 triggers one for before the operation is performed and another after the operation is performed.
otherwise it can be achieved through code also but it would be a bit tedious for the code to handle in case of batch processes.
You should try using triggers. You can have a separate table (exact replica of your table of which you need to maintain history) .
This table will then be updated by trigger after every insert/update/delete on your main table.
Then you can write your java code to get these changes from the second history table.
I think you can use the redo log of your underlying database to keep track of the operation performed. Is there any particular reason to go for the program?
You could try creating say a List of the objects from the table (Assuming you have objects for the data). Which will allow you to loop through the list and compare to the current data in the table? You will then be able to see if any changes occurred.
You can even create another list with a object that contains an enumerator that gives you the action (DELETE, UPDATE, CREATE) along with the new data.
Haven't done this before, just a idea.
Like #Ashish mentioned, triggers can be used to insert into a seperate table - this is commonly referred as Audit-Trail table or audit log table.
Below are columns generally defined in such audit trail table : 'Action' (insert,update,delete) , tablename (table into which it was inserted/deleted/updated), key (primary key of that table on need basis) , timestamp (the time at which this action was done)
It is better to audit-log after the entire transaction is through. If not, in case of exception being passed back to code-side, seperate call to update audit tables will be needed. Hope this helps.
If you are talking about db tables you may use either triggers in db or add some extra code within your application - probably using aspects. If you are using JPA you may use entity listeners or perform some extra logic adding some aspect to your DAO object and apply specific aspect to all DAOs which perform CRUD on entities that needs to sustain historical data. If your DAO object is stateless bean you may use Interceptor to achive that in other case use java proxy functionality, cglib or other lib that may provide aspect functionality for you. If you are using Spring instead of EJB you may advise your DAOs within application context config file.
Triggers are not suggestable, when I stored my audit data in file else I didn't use the database...my suggestion is create table "AUDIT" and write java code with help of servlets and store the data in file or DB or another DB also ...

Is it advisable to store some information (meta-data) about a content in the id (or key) of that content?

It is advisable to store some information(meta-data) about a content in the Id(or key) of that content ?
In other words, I am using a time based UUIDs as the Ids (or key) for some content stored in the database. My application first accesses the list of all such Ids(or keys) of the content (from the database) and then accessed the corresponding content(from the database). These Ids are actually UUIDs(time based). My idea is to store some extra information about the content, in the Ids itself, so that the my software can access this meta-content without accessing the entire content from the database again.
My application context is a website using Java technology and Cassandra database.
So my question is,
whether I should do so ? I am concerned since lots of processing may be required (at the time of presentation of data to user) in order to retrieve the meta data from the ids of the content!! Thus it may be instead better to retrieve it from database then getting it through processing of the Id of that content.
If suggested then , How should I implement that in an efficient manner ? I was thinking of following way :-
Id of a content = 'Timebased UUID' + 'UserId'
where, 'timebasedUUID' is the generated ID based on the timestamp when that content was added by a user & 'userId' represents the Id of the user who put that content.
so my example Id would look something like this:- e4c0b9c0-a633-15a0-ac78-001b38952a49(TimeUUID) -- ff7405dacd2b(UserId)
How should I extract this userId from the above id of the content, in most efficient manner?
Is there a better approach to store meta information in the Ids ?
I hate to say it since you seem to have put a lot of thought into this but I would say this is not advisable. Storing data like this sounds like a good idea at first but ends up causing problems because you will have many unexpected issues reading and saving the data. It's best to keep separate data as separate variables and columns.
If you are really interested in accessing meta-content with out main content I would make two column families. One family has the meta-content and the other the larger main content and both share the same ID key. I don't know much about Cassandra but this seems to be the recommended way to do this sort of thing.
I should note that I don't think that all this will be necessary. Unless the users are storing very large amounts of information their size should be trivial and your retrievals of them should remain quick
I agree with AmaDaden. Mixing IDs and data is the first step on a path that leads to a world of suffering. In particular, you will eventually find a situation where the business logic requires the data part to change and the database logic requires the ID not to change. Off the cuff, in your example, there might suddenly be a requirement for a user to be able to merge two accounts to a single user id. If user id is just data, this should be a trivial update. If it's part of the ID, you need to find and update all references to that id.

LinkedList with Serialization in Java

I'm getting introduced to serialization and ran into some problems when pairing it with LinkedList
Consider i have the following table:
CREATE TABLE JAVA_OBJECTS (
ID BIGINT NOT NULL UNIQUE AUTO_INCREMENT,
OBJ_NAME VARCHAR(50),
OBJ_VALUE BLOB
);
And i'm planning to store 3 object types - so the table may look like so -
ID OBJ_NAME OBJ_VALUE
============================
1 Class1 BLOB
2 Class2 BLOB
3 Class1 BLOB
4 Class3 BLOB
5 Class3 BLOB
And i'll use 3 different LinkedList's to manage these objects..
I've been able to implement LoadFromTable() and StoreIntoTable(Class1 obj1).
My question is - if i change an attribute for a Class2 object in LinkedList<Class2>, how do i effect the change in the DB for this individual item? Also take into account that the order of the elements in LinkedList may change..
Thanks : )
* EDIT
Yes, i understand that i'll have to delete/update a row in my DB table. But how do i keep track of WHICH row to update? I'm only storing the objects in the List, not their respective IDs in the table.
You'll have to store their IDs in the objects you are storing. However, I would suggest not trying to roll your own ORM system, and instead use something like Hibernate.
If you change an attribute in a an object or the order of items. You will have to delete that row and insert the updated list again.
How do i effect the change in the DB for this individual item?
I hope I get you right. The SQL update and delete statements allow you to add a WHERE clause in which you chose the ID of the row to update.
e.g.
UPDATE JAVA_OBJECTS SET OBJ_NAME ="new name" WHERE ID = 2
EDIT:
To prevent problems with your Ids you could wrap you object
class Wrapper {
int dbId;
Object obj;
}
And add them instead of the 'naked' object into your LinkedList
You can use AUTO_INCREMENT attribute for your table and then use the mysql_insert_id() function to retrieve the id assigned to the row added/updated by the last INSERT/UPDATE statement. Along with this maintain a map (eg a HashMap) from the java object to the Id. Using this map you can keep track of which row to delete/update.
Edit: See the answer to this question as well.
I think the real problem here is, that you mix and match different levels of abstraction. By storing serialized Java objects into a relational database as BLOBs you have to consider several drawbacks:
You loose interoperability. Applications written in other languages than Java are not able to read the data back. Even other Java applications have to have the class files of the serialized classes in their classpath.
Changing the class definitions of the stored classes will end up in maintenance nightmares.
You give up the advantages of a relational database. Serialization hides the actual data from the database. So the database is presented only with a black box. You are unable to execute any meaningfull query against the real data. All what you have is the ID and block of bytes.
You have to implement low level data handling by yourself. Actually the database is made to handle your data effectively, but because of serialization you hinder it doing its job. So you are on your own and you are running into that problem right now.
So in most cases you benifit from separation of concerns and using the right tool for a job.
Here are some suggestions:
Separate the internal data handling inside your application from persistent storage. Design your database schema in a way to enable the built-in database features to handle the data efficently. In case of a relational database like MySQL you can choose from different technologies like plain JDBC, object relational mappers like JPA or simple mappers like MyBatis. Separation here means to avoid to contaminate the database with implementation specific concerns.
If you have for example in your Java application a List of Person instances and each Person consists of a name and an age. Then you would represent that list in a relational database as a table consisting of a VARCHAR field for the name and a numeric field for the age and maybe a third field for a unique key. Then the database is able to do what it can do best: managing large amounts of data.
Inside your application you typically separate the persistent layer from the rest of your program containing the code to communicate with the database.
In some use cases a relational database may not be the appropiate tool. Maybe in a single user desktop application with a small set of data it may be the best to simply serialize your Person list into a plain file and read it back at the next start up.
But there exists other alternatives to persist your data. Maybe some kind of object oriented database is the right tool. In particular I have experiences with Fast Objects. As a simplification it is serialization on steroids. There is no need for a layer like JPA or JDBC between your application and your database. You are able to store the class instances directly into the database. But unlike the relational database with its BLOB field, the OODB knows your classes and the actual data and can benefit from that.
Another alternative may be JDBM or Berkeley DB.
So separation of concerns and choosing the right persistence strategy (and using it the right way) is a key concern for the success of your project. But doing it right is hard even for experienced developers.

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