User Interaction

Here is an overview of how to enable and configure different levels of user interaction for the Legacy Type Mapping.

Somewhere you have a foundation instance, a foundation in where everything is configured, from which the StorageManager is created.

EmbeddedStorageFoundation<?> foundation =
    EmbeddedStorage.Foundation(); // or from somewhere else

It itself contains a foundation for connections. To access the inner thing needs a little detour.

Incidentally, that’s not a JDBC connection, but this is just one thing that creates helper instances like Storer and Loader. Because Legacy Type Mapping affects loading, it has to go in there.

Either you access it directly, like this:

EmbeddedStorageConnectionFoundation f = foundation.getConnectionFoundation();

Or like this, that’s better for method chaining.

foundation.onConnectionFoundation(f ->
{
    ...
});

If you have that, the configuration for the Legacy Type Mapping callback logic is just a one liner:

f.setLegacyTypeMappingResultor(...);

Default

PersistenceLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New()

That’s just the necessary logic, without anything further. If you do not change anything, this is done by default.

With Console Output

PrintingLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New(PersistenceLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New())

That wraps a printer around the necessary logic. All these storage and persistence classes are nothing sacred or super-duper intertwined or anything. These are just interfaces and if you plug in another implementation then it will be used.

Inquiry

InquiringLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New(PersistenceLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New())

Resultor which asks the user to apply. More customization is possible, see below.

And so on

With the implementation of just one single interface method, you can build anything else you can imagine. For example, logging to a file instead of the console. Or in the personally preferred logging framework. Or write confirmed mappings into the refactorings file. Everything is possible.

For the inquiring implementation (InquiringLegacyTypeMappingResultor) there are a few settings: When should he ask? Always or only if something is unclear. Never does not make any sense of course, then you shouldn’t use it, or alternatively the printing resultor.

When is a mapping unclear?
If at least one field mapping is not completely clear.
A field mapping is clear if:

  1. If two fields are exactly the same (similarity 1.0 or 100%)

  2. Or if two fields are specified by the explicit mapping.

So if all fields are clear according to the above rule, then there is no need to ask.

And there is another special case: If a field is discarded that is not explicitly marked as discardable, then as a precaution an inquiry is always done. Although no data is lost, but the data would not be available in the application, so better ask.

There are options to control this a bit finer. You can optionally specify a double as a threshold (from 0.0 to 1.0, otherwise Exception):
The value determines how similar two matching fields automatically have to be so that they are not inquired.
Example: The value is 0.9 (90%), but a match found is only 0.8 (80%) similar. This is according to the specification too little, there must be an inquiry as a precaution. If you specify 1.0, that means: always ask, everything is really perfectly clear. If you enter 0.0, this means: never ask or only for implicitly dropping fields.

Looks like this:

InquiringLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New(
    PersistenceLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New()) // implicitely 1.0
InquiringLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New(
    PersistenceLegacyTypeMappingResultor.New(), 0.7) // 0.7 threshold

Here a small example with a Person class.

int    customerid  ; // -> pin
String firstname   ; // -> firstName
String surname     ; // -> lastName
String comment     ; // discarded, NOT new commerceId

It should be changed to:

Integer pin       ; // <- customerid
String  firstName ; // <- firstname
String  lastName  ; // <- surname
String  commerceId; // new, NOT old comment
Address address   ; // new

Without explicitly predefined mappings, the inquiry would look like this:

             [***new***] pin
firstname    -0,944----> firstName
surname      -0,688----> lastName
comment      -0,750----> commerceId
             [***new***] address
customerid   [discarded]

customerid and pin are too different to be automatically assigned to each other. Therefore, it is wrongly assumed that customerid is omitted and pin is new. comment and commerceId are surprisingly similar (75%) and are therefore assigned.
But that’s not what we want.

Incidentally, it would not matter here what is defined as a threshold: customerid would be eliminated by the implicit decision. This is too delicate not to inquire, so it is always necessary to ask.

To get the mapping right, you have to specify two entries:

  • customerid is now called pin

  • and comment should be omitted

Then the inquiry looks like this:

customerid   -[mapped]-> pin
firstname    -0,944----> firstName
surname      -0,688----> lastName
             [***new***] commerceId
             [***new***] address
comment      [discarded]

Due to the explicit mapping from customerid to pin, the similarity does not matter, it is the mapping that matters. To indicate this, it says "[mapped]" instead of the similarity. The rest is as usual. Only comment is now "[discarded]", according to the mapping. The difference to the above is namely: This is an explicitly predetermined absence. That does not force inquiry.

This clears the way for the threshold:

  • If you enter 0.7 or more then you will be asked. As far as everything would be clear, but the mapping of surname to lastName is below the required "minimum similarity", so rather ask.

  • If you enter 0.6 or less, you will no longer be asked. Because all assignments are either explicitly specified or they are according to "minimum similarity" similar enough to rely on it.

A recommendation for a good value for the "minimum similarity" is difficult. As soon as one softens rules, there is always the danger of a mistake. See comment example above: is 75% similar to commerceId. Still wrong. Then prefer 80%? Or 90%? Of course it is better, but the danger is still there.

If you want to be sure, just make 1.0 or omit the parameter, then by default 1.0 is taken.

The most important is the explicit mapping anyway : if "enough" is given by the user, there is no need to ask.