Switchable object

[Chicagoan2016]

Hi All,
We need a switchable object (Say object X) in our project.

1. Initially, the object will act as a root object, but when it is saved it will become a child object of another object (object Z).

2. Could we assign the instance created in step 1 as a root object (object X) to a child property of another object (object Z)?

3. When we call Save on the object Z, we dont object X to save again. Does the assignment operation in step 2 copy metastate properties?

Regards

[michaelcsikos]

Would it be easier to just copy the property values from the saved root object to the Child object and then MarkClean()?

[michaelcsikos]

With 4.11.2 you can pass a Serializable criteria object, usually inheriting from CriteriaBase<T>. With your criteria class you can pass the original root object, or a DTO to copy the values.

[Chicagoan2016]

Kind of brief explanation of our use case : )
We have a root object with several 'child' objects. The object graph is working fine, there is one edge case where one of the child object's data might not be in the database and the root object needs the primary key from that data.
I created a command object to see if that particular object's data exist in the database and then pass the primary key to the root object's DataPortal_Create and based on that I call either DataPortal.CreateChild or DataPortal.Fetchchild
But for some reason, I am not a fan of this design! it assumes the UI developer will know to use the command object first.

[michaelcsikos]

In your business object you could expose a method to GetOrCreateChildAsync(Guid? id = null). The business object can decide if the exists command needs to be executed first.

[Chicagoan2016]

@michaelcsikos which version of Csla supports GetOrCreateChildASync?

[michaelcsikos]

You can declare any factory method that you need to. In the factory method you can call the exists command and then create or fetch the object depending on the result.