I have a validator that validates Entities having javax.validation.constraints annotations:
public class EntityValidator {
void validate(Object obj) {
...
}
}
My goal is to make EntityValidator Generic but accept only Entity classes:
public class EntityValidator<E extends ???> {
void validate(E entity) {
...
}
}
The entities are having #Entity annotation and are all in the same package, but none of them have a common parent class.
What is the best practice to connect Entity classes fit to a same type?
The choices I think of:
Entities implement marker interface (eg. Serializable)
Create parent class (eg. BaseEntity) and inherit Entities from it.
Accept classes only with #Entity annotation in validator - not sure it is possible?
Assuming that you want the constraint to be enforced statically, the third option (by annotation) is out.
I'd venture that your best bet would be your own custom marker interface - so that your validation wouldn't interact with other facilities (as it would if you used Serializable,) and so that your hands would be left untied with the inheritance hierarchy.
Related
I implemented a decorator to customize the mapping of an entity, let's say MappingDecoratorA, which is an abstract class and implements the MapperA interface of mapstructs.
public abstract class MappingDecoratorA implements MapperA {
...}
#Mapper
#DecoratedWith(MappingDecoratorA .class)
public interface MapperA {
In an other mapping I use the MapperA, let's say MappingB, which uses cdi
#Mapper(uses = { MapperA.class},
componentModel = "cdi")
public interface MapperB{
Mapstructs generates two implementations for the MapperA, MapperAImpl and MapperAImpl_. In my situation the inject mechanism doesn't know which implementation to use. The result is an ambiguous exception listening the two implementation.
Does mapstruct support a solution for my problem?
When using the non default componentModel you have to use it for all the mappers. Especially if you want to reuse them. Otherwise the specific component won't know how to inject and create the mappers.
So a solution for your problem would be to do
#Mapper(componentModel = "cdi")
#DecoratedWith(MappingDecoratorA .class)
public interface MapperA {
}
I have read several articles and Stackoverflow posts for converting domain objects to DTOs and tried them out in my code. When it comes to testing and scalability I am always facing some issues. I know the following three possible solutions for converting domain objects to DTOs. Most of the time I am using Spring.
Solution 1: Private method in the service layer for converting
The first possible solution is to create a small "helper" method in the service layer code which is convertig the retrieved database object to my DTO object.
#Service
public MyEntityService {
public SomeDto getEntityById(Long id){
SomeEntity dbResult = someDao.findById(id);
SomeDto dtoResult = convert(dbResult);
// ... more logic happens
return dtoResult;
}
public SomeDto convert(SomeEntity entity){
//... Object creation and using getter/setter for converting
}
}
Pros:
easy to implement
no additional class for convertion needed -> project doesn't blow up with entities
Cons:
problems when testing, as new SomeEntity() is used in the privated method and if the object is deeply nested I have to provide a adequate result of my when(someDao.findById(id)).thenReturn(alsoDeeplyNestedObject) to avoid NullPointers if convertion is also dissolving the nested structure
Solution 2: Additional constructor in the DTO for converting domain entity to DTO
My second solution would be to add an additional constructor to my DTO entity to convert the object in the constructor.
public class SomeDto {
// ... some attributes
public SomeDto(SomeEntity entity) {
this.attribute = entity.getAttribute();
// ... nesting convertion & convertion of lists and arrays
}
}
Pros:
no additional class for converting needed
convertion hided in the DTO entity -> service code is smaller
Cons:
usage of new SomeDto() in the service code and therefor I have to provide the correct nested object structure as a result of my someDao mocking.
Solution 3: Using Spring's Converter or any other externalized Bean for this converting
If recently saw that Spring is offering a class for converting reasons: Converter<S, T> but this solution stands for every externalized class which is doing the convertion. With this solution I am injecting the converter to my service code and I call it when i want to convert the domain entity to my DTO.
Pros:
easy to test as I can mock the result during my test case
separation of tasks -> a dedicated class is doing the job
Cons:
doesn't "scale" that much as my domain model grows. With a lot of entities I have to create two converters for every new entity (-> converting DTO entitiy and entitiy to DTO)
Do you have more solutions for my problem and how do you handle it? Do you create a new Converter for every new domain object and can "live" with the amount of classes in the project?
Thanks in advance!
Solution 1: Private method in the service layer for converting
I guess Solution 1 will not not work well, because your DTOs are domain-oriented and not service oriented. Thus it will be likely that they are used in different services. So a mapping method does not belong to one service and therefore should not be implemented in one service. How would you re-use the mapping method in another service?
The 1. solution would work well if you use dedicated DTOs per service method. But more about this at the end.
Solution 2: Additional constructor in the DTO for converting domain entity to DTO
In general a good option, because you can see the DTO as an adapter to the entity. In other words: the DTO is another representation of an entity. Such designs often wrap the source object and provide methods that give you another view on the wrapped object.
But a DTO is a data transfer object so it might be serialized sooner or later and send over a network, e.g. using spring's remoting capabilities. In this case the client that receives this DTO must deserialize it and thus needs the entity classes in it's classpath, even if it only uses the DTO's interface.
Solution 3: Using Spring's Converter or any other externalized Bean for this converting
Solution 3 is the solution that I also would prefer. But I would create a Mapper<S,T> interface that is responsible for mapping from source to target and vice versa. E.g.
public interface Mapper<S,T> {
public T map(S source);
public S map(T target);
}
The implementation can be done using a mapping framework like modelmapper.
You also said that a converter for each entity
doesn't "scale" that much as my domain model grows. With a lot of entities I have to create two converters for every new entity (-> converting DTO entitiy and entitiy to DTO)
I doupt that you only have to create 2 converter or one mapper for one DTO, because your DTO is domain-oriented.
As soon as you start to use it in another service you will recognize that the other service usually should or can not return all values that the first service does.
You will start to implement another mapper or converter for each other service.
This answer would get to long if I start with pros and cons of dedicated or shared DTOs, so I can only ask you to read my blog pros and cons of service layer designs.
EDIT
About the third solution: where do you prefer to put the call for the mapper?
In the layer above the use cases. DTOs are data transfer objects, because they pack data in data structures that are best for the transfer protocol. Thus I call that layer the transport layer.
This layer is responsible for mapping use case's request and result objects from and to the transport representation, e.g. json data structures.
EDIT
I see you're ok with passing an entity as a DTO constructor parameter. Would you also be ok with the opposite? I mean, passing a DTO as an Entity constructor parameter?
A good question. The opposite would not be ok for me, because I would then introduce a dependency in the entity to the transport layer. This would mean that a change in the transport layer can impact the entities and I don't want changes in more detailed layers to impact more abstract layers.
If you need to pass data from the transport layer to the entity layer you should apply the dependency inversion principle.
Introduce an interface that will return the data through a set of getters, let the DTO implement it and use this interface in the entities constructor. Keep in mind that this interface belongs to the entity's layer and thus should not have any dependencies to the transport layer.
interface
+-----+ implements || +------------+ uses +--------+
| DTO | ---------------||-> | EntityData | <---- | Entity |
+-----+ || +------------+ +--------+
I like the third solution from the accepted answer.
Solution 3: Using Spring's Converter or any other externalized Bean for this converting
And I create DtoConverter in this way:
BaseEntity class marker:
public abstract class BaseEntity implements Serializable {
}
AbstractDto class marker:
public class AbstractDto {
}
GenericConverter interface:
public interface GenericConverter<D extends AbstractDto, E extends BaseEntity> {
E createFrom(D dto);
D createFrom(E entity);
E updateEntity(E entity, D dto);
default List<D> createFromEntities(final Collection<E> entities) {
return entities.stream()
.map(this::createFrom)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
}
default List<E> createFromDtos(final Collection<D> dtos) {
return dtos.stream()
.map(this::createFrom)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
}
}
CommentConverter interface:
public interface CommentConverter extends GenericConverter<CommentDto, CommentEntity> {
}
CommentConveter class implementation:
#Component
public class CommentConverterImpl implements CommentConverter {
#Override
public CommentEntity createFrom(CommentDto dto) {
CommentEntity entity = new CommentEntity();
updateEntity(entity, dto);
return entity;
}
#Override
public CommentDto createFrom(CommentEntity entity) {
CommentDto dto = new CommentDto();
if (entity != null) {
dto.setAuthor(entity.getAuthor());
dto.setCommentId(entity.getCommentId());
dto.setCommentData(entity.getCommentData());
dto.setCommentDate(entity.getCommentDate());
dto.setNew(entity.getNew());
}
return dto;
}
#Override
public CommentEntity updateEntity(CommentEntity entity, CommentDto dto) {
if (entity != null && dto != null) {
entity.setCommentData(dto.getCommentData());
entity.setAuthor(dto.getAuthor());
}
return entity;
}
}
I ended up NOT using some magical mapping library or external converter class, but just adding a small bean of my own which has convert methods from each entity to each DTO I need. The reason is that the mapping was:
either stupidly simple and I would just copy some values from one field to another, perhaps with a small utility method,
or was quite complex and would be more complicated to write down in the custom parameters to some generic mapping library, compared to just writing out that code. This is for example in the case where the client can send JSON but under the hood this is transformed into entities, and when the client retrieves the parent object of these entities again, it's converted back into JSON.
This means I can just call .map(converter::convert) on any collection of entities to get back a stream of my DTO's.
Is it scalable to have it all in one class? Well the custom configuration for this mapping would have to be stored somewhere even if using a generic mapper. The code is generally extremely simple, except for a handful of cases, so I'm not too worried about this class exploding in complexity. I'm also not expecting to have dozens more entities, but if I did I might group these converters in a class per subdomain.
Adding a base class to my entities and DTO's so I can write a generic converter interface and implement it per class just isn't needed (yet?) either for me.
In my opinion the third solution is the best one. Yes for each entity you'll have to create a two new convert classes but when you come time for testing you won't have a lot of headaches. You should never chose the solution which will cause you to write less code at the begining and then write much more when it comes to testing and maintaining that code.
Another point is , if you use the second approach and your entity has lazy dependencies, your Dto can't understand if dependency is loaded unless you inject EntityManager into the Dto and use it to check if dependency was loaded. I don't like this approach cause Dto shouldn't know anything about EntityManager. As a solution I personally prefer Converters but at the same time I prefer to have multiple Dto classes for the same entity . For example If I am 100 % sure that User Entity will be loaded without corresponding Company , then there has to be a UserDto that doesn't have CompanyDto as a field. At the same time If I know that UserEntity will be loaded with correlated Company , then I will use aggregate pattern , something like a UserCompanyDto class that contains UserDto and CompanyDto as parameters
On my side I prefer using option 3 with a third party library such as modelmapper or mapstruct. Also I use it through interface in an util package, because I don't want any external tool or library to interact directly with my code.
Definition:
public interface MapperWrapper {
<T> T performMapping(Object source, Class<T> destination);
}
#Component
public class ModelMapperWrapper implements MapperWrapper {
private ModelMapper mapper;
public ModelMapperWrapper() {
this.mapper = new ModelMapper();
}
#Override
public <T> T performMapping(Object source, Class<T>
destination) {
mapper.getConfiguration()
.setMatchingStrategy(MatchingStrategies.STRICT);
return mapper.map(source, destination);
}
}
Then after I can test it easily:
Testing:
#SpringJUnitWebConfig(TestApplicationConfig.class)
class ModelMapperWrapperTest implements WithAssertions {
private final MapperWrapper mapperWrapper;
#Autowired
public ModelMapperWrapperTest(MapperWrapper mapperWrapper) {
this.mapperWrapper = mapperWrapper;
}
#BeforeEach
void setUp() {
}
#Test
void givenModel_whenMapModelToDto_thenReturnsDto() {
var model = new DummyModel();
model.setId(1);
model.setName("DUMMY_NAME");
model.setAge(25);
var modelDto = mapperWrapper.performMapping(model, DummyModelDto.class);
assertAll(
() -> assertThat(modelDto.getId()).isEqualTo(String.valueOf(model.getId())),
() -> assertThat(modelDto.getName()).isEqualTo(model.getName()),
() -> assertThat(modelDto.getAge()).isEqualTo(String.valueOf(model.getAge()))
);
}
#Test
void givenDto_whenMapDtoToModel_thenReturnsModel() {
var modelDto = new DummyModelDto();
modelDto.setId("1");
modelDto.setName("DUMMY_NAME");
modelDto.setAge("25");
var model = mapperWrapper.performMapping(modelDto, DummyModel.class);
assertAll(
() -> assertThat(model.getId()).isEqualTo(Integer.valueOf(modelDto.getId())),
() -> assertThat(model.getName()).isEqualTo(modelDto.getName()),
() -> assertThat(model.getAge()).isEqualTo(Integer.valueOf(modelDto.getAge()))
);
}
}
After that it can be very easy to use another mapper library. I should have created an abstract factory, or strategy pattern also.
I would like to create a Spring Data JPA repository with custom behavior, and implement that custom behavior using Specifications. I have gone through the Spring Data JPA documentation for implementing custom behavior in a single repository to set this up, except there is no example of using a Spring Data Specification from within a custom repository. How would one do this, if even possible?
I do not see a way to inject something into the custom implementation that takes a specification. I thought I would be tricky and inject the CRUD repository portion of the repository into the custom portion, but that results in a circular instantiation dependency.
I am not using QueryDSL. Thanks.
I guess the primary source for inspiration could be how SimpleJpaRepository handles specifications. The key spots to have a look at are:
SimpleJpaRepository.getQuery(…) - it's basically creating a CriteriaQuery and bootstraps a select using a JPA Root. Whether the latter applies to your use case is already up to you. I think the former will apply definitely.
SimpleJpaRepository.applySpecificationToCriteria(…) - it basically uses the artifacts produced in getQuery(…) (i.e. the Root and the CriteriaQuery) and applies the given Specification to exactly these artifacts.
this is not using Specification, so not sure if it's relevant to you, but one way that I was able to inject custom behavior is as follows,
Basic structure: as follows
i. create a generic interface for the set of entity classes which are modeled after a generic parent entity. Note, this is optional. In my case I had a need for this hierarchy, but it's not necessary
public interface GenericRepository<T> {
// add any common methods to your entity hierarchy objects,
// so that you don't have to repeat them in each of the children entities
// since you will be extending from this interface
}
ii. Extend a specific repository from generic (step 1) and JPARepository as
public interface MySpecificEntityRepository extends GenericRepository<MySpecificEntity>, JpaRepository<MySpecificEntity, Long> {
// add all methods based on column names, entity graphs or JPQL that you would like to
// have here in addition to what's offered by JpaRepository
}
iii. Use the above repository in your service implementation class
Now, the Service class may look like this,
public interface GenericService<T extends GenericEntity, ID extends Serializable> {
// add specific methods you want to extend to user
}
The generic implementation class can be as follows,
public abstract class GenericServiceImpl<T extends GenericEntity, J extends JpaRepository<T, Long> & GenericRepository<T>> implements GenericService<T, Long> {
// constructor takes in specific repository
public GenericServiceImpl(J genericRepository) {
// save this to local var
}
// using the above repository, specific methods are programmed
}
specific implementation class can be
public class MySpecificEntityServiceImpl extends GenericServiceImpl<MySpecificEntity, MySpecificEntityRepository> implements MySpecificEntityService {
// the specific repository is autowired
#Autowired
public MySpecificEntityServiceImpl(MySpecificEntityRepository genericRepository) {
super(genericRepository);
this.genericRepository = (MySpecificEntityRepository) genericRepository;
}
}
Is there a way how to define an entity hierarchy that enables to query just particular subclass? Consider situation below. Let's have abstract Base class that defines common properties and concrete subclasses A and B.
class abstract Base {
...
}
class A extends Base {
...
}
class B extends Base {
...
}
I would like to run for example queries as follows.
To retrieve all entities of type A and B
Base base = this.objectify.load().type(Base.class).list();
To retrieve all entities of type A
Base base = this.objectify.load().type(A.class).list();
To retrieve all entities of type B
Base base = this.objectify.load().type(B.class).list();
Furthermore, we would like to store all such entities as a single type (Base entity) in GAE Datastore.
We tried to use polymorphic hierarchy of related entity classes described here:
https://code.google.com/p/objectify-appengine/wiki/Entities#Polymorphism
But it seems that this is not capable of handling a situation where there are multiple entity subclasses with a common parent.
I don't think Base can be abstract, but this should work:
#Entity
class Base { ... }
#EntitySubclass(index=true)
class A extends Base { ... }
#EntitySubclass(index=true)
class B extends Base { ... }
If you want to be able to query by polymorphic type, you must index the types that you want to query by.
I'm trying to implement a inheritence relationship between JPA entities.
Borrowing the example from:
http://openjpa.apache.org/builds/1.0.2/apache-openjpa-1.0.2/docs/manual/jpa_overview_mapping_discrim.html
#Entity
#Table(name="SUB", schema="CNTRCT")
#DiscriminatorColumn(name="KIND", discriminatorType=DiscriminatorType.INTEGER)
public abstract class Subscription {
...
}
#Entity(name="Lifetime")
#DiscriminatorValue("2")
public class LifetimeSubscription
extends Subscription {
...
}
}
#Entity(name="Trial")
#DiscriminatorValue("3")
public class TrialSubscription
extends Subscription {
...
}
What I need to be able to do is have an additional entity that catches the rest, something like:
#Entity(name="WildCard")
#DiscriminatorValue(^[23])
public class WildSubscription
extends Subscription {
...
}
Where if it does not match LifetimeSubscription or TrialSubscription it will match WildSubscription.
It actually makes a bit more sense if you think of it where the wild is the superclass, and if there is not a more concrete implementation that fits, use the superclass.
Anyone know of a method of doing this?
Thanks!
The JPA API allows only plain values here, and for a reason: discriminator values are mapped to SQL WHERE:
SELECT ... WHERE kind = 1
If you could specify regular expressions here, it wouldn't be transferable to SQL, as it does not support such constructs.