[dna-issues] [JBoss JIRA] Commented: (DNA-357) Hide dna:nodeDefinition Property from Users

Thu Apr 16 10:14:40 EDT 2009

    [ https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/DNA-357?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12462587#action_12462587 ] 

Randall Hauch commented on DNA-357:
-----------------------------------

Applied both patches.  The first hides the "dna:nodeDefinition" property from the JCR layer (meaning it might exist in the graph layer, but won't appear as properties of JCR nodes).  The second patch adds to "nt:base" a property definition for a "dna:nodeDefinition" property that is protected and not mandatory (nor autocreated).  The spec is not clear as to whether a JCR implementation can add properties to "nt:base" (the required supertype of all node types), the spec is clear that an implementation can add properties to any of the built-in node types through mixins.  Therefore, the second patch actually adds this new definition to "nt:base" by having "nt:base" extend the new "dna:defined" mixin, which has the new "dna:nodeDefinition" property definition.  

Because the "dna:nodeDefinition" is protected, JCR clients will not be allowed to define another property with this name, nor will they be able to set the property (using a residual definition) to any value.  All this validation is done through the normal process, requiring no code specific to "dna:nodeDefinition".  

Nicely done!  This is a great demonstration on how node types, node definitions, and property definitions can be used to enforce a structure while having no additional validation code.

> Hide dna:nodeDefinition Property from Users
> -------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: DNA-357
>                 URL: https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/DNA-357
>             Project: DNA
>          Issue Type: Feature Request
>          Components: JCR
>            Reporter: Brian Carothers
>            Priority: Minor
>             Fix For: 0.4
>
>         Attachments: DNA-357.patch, DNA-357_new_mixin.patch
>
>
> dna:nodeDefinition is a bit of an odd duck.  It is set on every property but doesn't always have a valid JCR definition.  This breaks an export-import round trip as the property cannot be set during import.  It also breaks a few TCK tests that assume a jcr:xmltext node only has two properties (jcr:primaryType and jcr:xmlcharacters), but that's really a TCK defect.
> Can we just suppress this property at the JCR layer?  It would still be available for internal use but would not appear to end users.  Alternatively, we should modify our definition for nt:base to include it as a protected property - this solution may violate the spec.

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