Linq-to-SQL How to prevent the use of Delete methods? - linq

By convention our DB only alows the use of stored procedures for INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. For some tables / types there is no DELETE stored procedure, because it is not allowed to delete rows. (You can only update the status of such a type to "deleted"). e.g. a customer may be marked as deleted but is never really removed from the DB.
How do I prevent the use of Delete() for certain types in the Data Access Layer = in the DMBL?
The "Default Methods" for Insert and Update are mapped to the corresponding stored procedure. But for Delete it says "use runtime". I would like to set it to "not allowed".
Is there a way to achieve this on the DB model layer?
Many thanks

Implement a partial class for each such entity and implement the OnValidate partial method. It takes a ChangeAction as a parameter. When the ChangeAction is ChangeAction.Delete, throw an exception that indicates that the operation is disallowed (IllegalOperationException, maybe).

I had the same constraint while developing one of my application. You can always condifure the delete action to use a certain stored procedure instead of the framework generating a sql command for the same. In my case when I say delete we just wanted to mark a particular row as deleted but not physically deleting it. So our update stored procedure was reused in the delete command to simply mark the isDeleted col value as true. Besides that you may want to build some kind of wrapper around the classes built by DBML and suppress the delete methods. Right now I do not see any speciall setting to have the framework only generate create and update methods. Partial classes may be one more alternative.

How about to configure rights for the user you're using to connect to DB? You can set Deny for Delete operation for this particular user, so it wouldn't be possible to use DELETE statement on DB level.

The deletion API is not generated, by which I mean an option on a generated table cannot remove the ability to mark an item as deleted. DeleteOnSubmit is part of the Table<TEntity> class.
If it is always an error to delete an entity, OnValidate should throw an InvalidOperationException as tvanfosson suggests.
I tried mapping Linq to Sql deletes to stored procedures which simply set the field to true. It gets weird because the DataContext removes instances after "deleting", but they are legal domain entities and should still be in the DataContext after submitting.

Related

JPA add a condition to every single query automatically

Before anything, i must say this first: This table design is not my decision. We protest but to no avail, so please don't tell me, don't create a table like that.
We have a database with each table have a flag. This flag used to indicate which environment this row belong to, production or test data.
For server side, we have one variable which currently stored in ThreadLocal to indicate which environment this request belong to, same value as the flag in database.
Our requirement is that if my request belong to test environment then we must select only record belong to this environment. We would need to add a condition to every query we made to database, something like:
SELECT t FROM TABLE t WHERE t.flag = :environment
But we have to update every single query, update every object to set this flag before insert/update into database. This will require a lot of effort as our system already built long ago, not on progress. Also this will bring a lots of risk if someone forgot to add this to any new query.
So is there anyway to insert a condition to check this flag value for every query without have to manually edit the query string? Like an interceptor or something to put this condition in?
Which JPA provider?
With Hibernate, you could try using a #Filter.
Multitenancy could be another option, but probably an overkill in your scenario.
Finally, since you flagged the question with Oracle, perhaps the easiest approach would be to provide dedicated schemas (per environment) with views for every single table in your db, filtered by the flag column. Not sure if you're allowed to do that, though.
With some of the above, you would need a global entity listener to populate the flag field of your entities before they are persisted.

Changed existing entity model and manually updated SQL Server database but still get context changed error

I have an existing MVC3 application and database that is on a SQL Server 2008 R2 and I had to add a bool item to an existing model.
After I added it to the model, I rebuilt and published the project. Then I opened up SQL Server Management Studio and went to the table and added the entry to the column as a bit, I had to make it nullable since the table already contains data.
I thought this would be all that I would need to do to get everything working. However I got this error:
The model backing the 'psllc_DB' context has changed since the database was created. Either manually delete/update the database, or call Database.SetInitializer with an IDatabaseInitializer instance. For example, the DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges strategy will automatically delete and recreate the database, and optionally seed it with new data.
I'm not sure what else to do, I went back to the code and changed the bool to bool? so it will be nullable but this didn't help either. I can't drop the entire database since it's full of data, however as a last ditch possibility I could drop this table and re-create it cause it only has a few entries, but I don't know if that will work. I'm not sure what else to do so any advice would be very appreciated.
Update
Since I'm not getting any responses, let me rephrase my question.
How should I update my database (a SQL Express mdf file) to add a bool Column to a Table that has data already? I need the database to match my updated MVC 3 Entity Code First model otherwise I get the above error.
Thanks
Since this is code-first, you should do this code-first: change the class and use EF-migrations to change the database. The way you do it, the model and the database may match, but the meta information in the database is not updated.
By the way, if you supply a default value, you can add a non-nullable column.

how can i update an object/entity that is not completely filled out?

I have an entity with several fields, but on one view i want to only edit one of the fields. for example... I have a user entity, user has, id, name, address, username, pwd, and so on. on one of the views i want to be able to change the pwd(and only the pwd). so the view only knows of the id and sends the pwd. I want to update my entity without loading the rest of the fields(there are many many more) and changing the one pwd field and then saving them ALL back to the database. has anyone tried this. or know where i can look. all help is greatly appreciated.
Thx in advance.
PS
i should have given more detail. im using hibernate, roo is creating my entities. I agree that each view should have its own entity, problem is, im only building controllers, everything was done before. we were finders from the service layer, but we wanted to use some other finders, they seemed to not be accessible through the service layer, the decision was made to blow away the service layer and just interact with the entities directly (through the finders), the UserService.update(user) is no longer an option. i have recently found a User.persist() and a User.merge(), does the merge update all the fields on the object or only the ones that are not null, or if i want one to now be null how would it know the difference?
Which technologies except Spring are you using?
First of all have separate DTOs for every view, stripped only to what's needed. One DTO for id+password, another for address data, etc. Remember that DTOs can inherit from each other, so you can avoid duplication. And never pass business/ORM entities directly to view. It is too risky, leaks in some frameworks might allow users to modify fields which you haven't intended.
After the DTO comes back from the view (most web frameworks work like this) simply load the whole entity and fill only the fields that are present in the DTO.
But it seems like it's the persistence that is troubling you. Assuming you are using Hibernate, you can take advantage of dynamic-update setting:
dynamic-update (optional - defaults to false): specifies that UPDATE SQL should be generated at runtime and can contain only those columns whose values have changed.
In this case you are still loading the whole entity into memory, but Hibernate will generate as small UPDATE as possible, including only modified (dirty) fields.
Another approach is to have separate entities for each use-case/view. So you'll have an entity with only id and password, entity with only address data, etc. All of them are mapped to the same table, but to different subset of columns. This easily becomes a mess and should be treated as a last resort.
See the hibernate reference here
For persist()
persist() makes a transient instance persistent. However, it does not guarantee that the
identifier value will be assigned to the persistent instance immediately, the assignment
might happen at flush time. persist() also guarantees that it will not execute an INSERT
statement if it is called outside of transaction boundaries. This is useful in long-running
conversations with an extended Session/persistence context.
For merge
if there is a persistent instance with the same identifier currently associated with the session, copy the state of the given object onto the persistent instance
if there is no persistent instance currently associated with the session, try to load it from the database, or create a new persistent instance
the persistent instance is returned
the given instance does not become associated with the session, it remains detached
persist() and merge() has nothing to do with the fact that the columns are modified or not .Use dynamic-update as #Tomasz Nurkiewicz has suggested for saving only the modified columns .Use dynamic-insert for inserting not null columns .
Some JPA providers such as EclipseLink support fetch groups. So you can load a partial instance and update it.
See,
http://wiki.eclipse.org/EclipseLink/Examples/JPA/AttributeGroup

Using Linq SubmitChanges without TimeStamp and StoredProcedures the same time

I am using Sql tables without rowversion or timestamp. However, I need to use Linq to update certain values in the table. Since Linq cannot know which values to update, I am using a second DataContext to retrieve the current object from database and use both the database and the actual object as Input for the Attach method like so:
Public Sub SaveCustomer(ByVal cust As Customer)
Using dc As New AppDataContext()
If (cust.Id > 0) Then
Dim tempCust As Customer = Nothing
Using dc2 As New AppDataContext()
tempCust = dc2.Customers.Single(Function(c) c.Id = cust.Id)
End Using
dc.Customers.Attach(cust, tempCust)
Else
dc.Customers.InsertOnSubmit(cust)
End If
dc.SubmitChanges()
End Using
End Sub
While this does work, I have a problem though: I am also using StoredProcedures to update some fields of Customer at certain times. Now imagine the following workflow:
Get customer from database
Set a customer field to a new value
Use a stored procedure to update another customer field
Call SaveCustomer
What happens now, is, that the SaveCustomer method retrieves the current object from the database which does not contain the value set in code, but DOES contain the value set by the stored procedure. When attaching this with the actual object and then submit, it will update the value set in code also in the database and ... tadaaaa... set the other one to NULL, since the actual object does not contain the changed made by the stored procedure.
Was that understandable?
Is there any best practice to solve this problem?
If you make changes behind the back of the ORM, and don't use concurrency checking - then you are going to have problems. You don't show what you did in step "3", but IMO you should update the object model to reflect these changes, perhaps using OUTPUT TSQL paramaters. Or; stick to object-oriented.
Of course, doing anything without concurrency checking is a good way to lose data - so my preferred option is simply "add a rowversion". Otherwise, you could perhaps read the updated object out and merge things... somehow guessing what the right data is...
If you're going to disconnect your object from one context and use another one for the update, you need to either retain the original object, use a row version, or implement some sort of hashing routine in your database and retain the hash as part of your object. Of these, I highly recommend the Rowversion option as well. Using the current value as the original value like you are trying to do is only asking for concurrency problems.

Default Sort Column with Linq to SQL

I am in the process building myself a simple Linq to SQL repository pattern.
What I wanted to know is, is it possible to set a default sort column so I don't have to call orderby.
From what I have read I don't think it is and if this is the case what would recommend for a solution to this problem.
Would the best idea be to use an attribute on a partial class on my model?
the default order is the clustered index on the table you are pulling from.
What are you wanting to sort on (without sorting on) ?
If you needed something other than having it sorted by the primary key, you could look at supplying a select statement for the table instead of using the runtime generated statement. Look at the properties on the table in the designer -- you should be able to override the runtime generated select, delete, and update statements. I don't personally recommend this, though, since I'm not sure how it will interact with other orderings. I think the intent is more along the lines of allowing you to use stored procedures if you want.
Another alternative would be to create a table-valued function or stored procedure that does the ordering the way you want and has the same schema as the table. If, in the designer, you drag this onto the table, you get a strongly typed method on the data context that you can use to obtain those entities according to the definition of the function/procedure instead of the standard select. Personally I think this introduces fewer maintenance headaches because it makes it more visible, but you do have to remember to use the method instead of the Table property for that entity.

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