Sounds like you want to make the field NOT NULL with a default value in the database. That would transparently do what you've described, without any reliance on Cayenne.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Øyvind Harboe Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 5:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Handling of database NULL - default value column to modeler? One way to handle database NULL (replace with default value) is to override the CayenneDataObject get/set methods. However, I was wondering if it would make sense to add a column to DbEntity in the modeler for this case. The idea is that this "documents" the behaviour in the modeler for what happens in this case for a column. It also saves a tad of Java boilerplate code. I would expect the default value to behave as follows: default value = null. Same as today. default value != null: - return default value upon getXxx() methods (readProperty()) when database column contains NULL - setProperty() w/default value upon column w/database NULL. Probably update the database upon commit. This would cause database NULL to be updated to default value when rewinding/submitting a form without actually making any changes to a form(using tapestry rewinding wording above...) - I'm not quite sure if I have decided what to expect from Expression's. If I search for a value in the database that is equal to the default value, would I then expect rows w/NULL to match? Probably not. -- Øyvind Harboe http://www.zylin.com/zy1000.html ARM7 ARM9 XScale Cortex JTAG debugger and flash programmer
