Retrieving objects from the database in the PropertyEditor

Question

When using PropertyEditors with Spring MVC, do they poorly retrieve entities from the database? Should I instead create an empty object and set its identifier.

For example, for an Employee person:

@Entity
@Table(name = "employee")
public class Employee implements GenericEntity<Integer>{

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    @Column(name = "employee_id")
    public Integer getEmployeeId() {
        return employeeId;
    }

    public void setEmployeeId(Integer employeeId) {
        this.employeeId = employeeId;
    }

    /** More properties here **/
}

It's a good idea to get Entity in the PropertyEditor below with the following GenericEntityEditor:

public class GenericEntityEditor<ENTITY extends GenericEntity<Integer>> extends PropertyEditorSupport {

    private GenericDao<ENTITY, Integer> genericDao;

    public GenericEntityEditor(GenericDao<ENTITY, Integer> genericDao) {
        this.genericDao = genericDao;
    }

    @Override
    public void setAsText(String text) throws IllegalArgumentException {
        setValue(genericDao.findById(Integer.valueOf(text)));
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    @Override
    public String getAsText() {
        ENTITY entity = (ENTITY) getValue();
        if(entity == null) {
            return null;
        } 

        return String.valueOf(entity.getId());
    }
}

What can be connected in the controller:

@Controller
public class EmployeeController {
    /** Some Service-layer resources **/

    @Resource
    private EmployeeDao employeeDao; // implements GenericDao<ENTITY, Integer> genericDao

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    @InitBinder
    public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
        binder.registerCustomEditor(Employee.class, new GenericEntityEditor(employeeDao));
    }

    /** Some request mapped methods **/

}

It is preferable to use a more specific approach with EmployeeEditor and simply create an instance of Employee and set its id:

public class EmployeeEditor extends PropertyEditorSupport {

    @Override
    public void setAsText(String text) throws IllegalArgumentException {
        Employee employee = new Employee();
        employee.setId(Integer.valueOf(text));
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    @Override
    public String getAsText() {
        Employee employee = (Employee) getValue();
        if(employee == null) {
            return null;
        } 

        return String.valueOf(employee.getId());
    }
}

This way, we don’t do a backward transition to the database every time the Employee exists in the form, but I’m not sure if this works as expected with Hibernate?

Answer 1

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Spring 3.0 . Converter (Reference Chapter 5.5 Spring 3 )

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---

: () Spring 3.0. > 3: org.springframework.core.convert.support.IdToEntityConverter

ConversationService ConcersationServiceFactory.

IdToEntityConverter (Object) Entity, !! find<entityName>, , - .

/**
 * Converts an entity identifier to a entity reference by calling a static finder method
 * on the target entity type.
 *
 * <p>For this converter to match, the finder method must be public, static, have the signature
 * <code>find[EntityName]([IdType])</code>, and return an instance of the desired entity type.
 *
 * @author Keith Donald
 * @since 3.0
 */

, . Spring Roo .