modality

ModelTool

Features

The ModelTool exposes a model definition to the view.

VTL API

TODO

- fetching: #set($book = $bookstore.fetch(1))
- properties and joins: $book.publisher.address.zip
- loops: #foreach($author.books) ...
- attributes: $book.most_recent_edition.year

Upgrading Velosurf Webapps

Fix libraries versions (TODO add link towards dependencies).

In tools.xml

• Models need to be in the application scope.
• Use the com.republicate.tools.model.velosurf.VelosurfTool class for the model.
• Add credentials = "…path to credentials.xml…" to the <tool> tag.

Using the com.republicate.tools.model.velosurf.VelosurfTool instead of the regular com.republicate.tools.model.ModelTool provides the following backward compatibility helpers:

• Support of model obfuscate() and deobfuscate() methods
• Support of <database> instead of <model> and of the deprecated tags <entity> and <attribute>, along with some deprecated attributes (caching, read-only, obfuscate and localize for entities, caching replaced by cached for attributes)
• Support for rowset getRows(), getScalars(), getSet(), getMap() and getInstanceMap()
• Instance generic getter also returns attributes (also mimic Velosurf behavior: search for attributes when inner values are present but null) - new behavior is to only return colmns

In model.xml

• Remove the <credentials> tag or the <xi:include> of the credentials, if any.
• Replace <model>’s attribute read-only="true|false" by write="none|java|vtl".
• Remove <model>’s attributes loglevel and seed, if any.
• Other deprecated elements will appear as deprecation warnings in the log, but will be taken into account.
• Obfuscated columns are to be configured in modality.properties, see below.

In velocity.properties

Update uberspectors:

runtime.introspector.uberspect = com.republicate.modality.tools.model.ModelUberspector,org.apache.velocity.util.introspection.UberspectImpl,org.apache.velocity.tools.view.WebappUberspector

In the Java code

• Replace all references to velosurf.util.Logger, if any, with slf4j loggers.
• Servlets or filters needing access to the model can inherit from com.republicate.modality.webapp.ModalityFilter or com.republicate.modality.webapp.ModalityServlet, and call getModel().
• In Java code, the generic getter of instances now only concern columns. You’ll call evaluate() to get a scalar, retrieve() to get a row, query() to get a rowset and perform() to perform an action. The same methods can be called on the model for root attributes.
• Entities have fetch(), getCount() and iterate() methods.
• Use the above methods instead of getWithParams().

modality.properties

You’ll potentially need a new /WEB-INF/modality.properties.

• For obfuscated columns, set:

    model.filters.read.*.foo_id = obfuscate
    model.filters.write.*.foo_id = deobfuscate_strings
  

  This will obfuscate all foo_id columns.

In the templates

• You can still call an attribute as if it were a method, as before. Paramaters can now also be specified in their natural order instead of inside a map.
• Don’t set parameter values in the model itself, like in #set($db.param = ...). You’ll get java.sql.SQLFeatureNotSupportedException: ModelTool is read-only messages in the log.
• The .order and .refine features have been dropped.
• The Instance.setColumnValues() method has been dropped.

• Since Velocity Engine 2.2 (unreleased at the time of writing), you can locate log messages in templates. For instance when using the webapp-slf4j-logger:

      <context-param>
          <param-name>webapp-slf4j-logger.format</param-name>
          <param-value>%logger [%level] [%ip] %message @%file:%line:%column</param-value>
      </context-param>
  

Testing

Set Velocity to strict mode to be sure your templates are ok.

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