See thread

http://www.llblgen.com/tinyforum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=1803

I know I can get field length with syntax like this (in adapter)

int maxLength = myCustomer.Fields[(int)CustomerFieldIndex.CompanyName].MaxLength;

First, this does not appear to be static, so it requires an entity instance. Second, the syntax is not exactly simple.

What would be nice would be a static property for each field in an entity, such as

Customer.CompanyNameMaxLength

It's great that the entity will validate the length when I set the field. The reason it would be nice to have this, though, is in those cases where some information is being collected from the user, but the entity is not being set until sometime later. For example, I am building a fairly complex wizard. Based on user choices, I will make sure he doesn't leave certain fields empty. But I'm not validating the length of his input. Later, after he has clicked on 'Finish', the calling code will access all the data in the wizard through its properties and start assembling the entities. At that point if an exception is thrown it will be a real pain to figure out exactly which field it was, and show the wizard again with focus on the proper page, etc.

The wizard knows about entities (it has to fill comboboxes from entity collections), and it would be very simple to just add to my validation logic inside the wizard the checks on string lengths.

This could be something optionally generated in the designer, so folks who don't need it don't generate it.

What do you think Frans? If you don't think it's a good idea maybe I will take my first stab at customizing the code generation process (ach!!! need more hours in the day!! )

I don't know if this answers your situation but you could do

        txtGroupName.MaxLength = EntityFieldFactory.Create(GroupFieldIndex.Name).MaxLength

When I read this, my first thought was lord no, not a full set of properties.

Then I thought about it and I am currently doing this just in a different way.

I added to the entity class a method with something like this signature:

Definition:
static int GetMaxLength(CustomerFieldIndex fieldName); 

Usage:
int len = CustomerEntity.GetMaxLength(CustomerFieldIndex.CompanyName);

I put this in the entity class user defined code so it works with each upgrade Frans puts out.

Inside this I currently instantiate then do the same line of code that you used for adapter, do clean up and return. I would think it is possible to copy the actual length value using the templates but I'm not sure if that is available or not through a parameter.

Just checked my code and my current version is not Static, so it's use is more:

int len = MyCustomer.GetMaxFieldLen(CustomerFieldIndex.CompanyName);

I probably switched to this so I wasn't creating extra copies of entities when they already existed in my business layer.

John.

I won't add this to the main code, simply because I'm moving away from more and more code into the generated code, simply because it bogs down large projects.

That's not to say you can't have 'em, of course . Just add a simple template and generate them out for yourself. It's no big deal. Similar to that I've added a template to 1.0.2005.1, which creates field objects as in: CustomerFIelds.CompanyName. This is new code to the generated code and I had to think long before adding this, but it was required for the operator overloading, so I did add it. Again new properties which are available in the Fields object as well, I think that will bloat the code too much.

So, if you want them, just write a simple include template . In 1.0.2005.1, you can even use .lpt templates as include templates. A TDL include for this would take a couple of lines, so it's easily added, after all, they're just sugar to properties available in the same object.

Fishy and John, thanks for your suggestions.

Frans, I understand the concern with too much generated code. This is probably an ideal candidate for a template. I'll just have to find some extra time and come up to speed on that. Maybe I'll post it when I'm done.

Thanks!