Is the Predicate system datatype sensitive when constructing filter expressions? I have run into an issue where the datatype supplied when constructing a EntityView2 object's filter seems to determine whether or not the filter is applied.

The code below shows the problem. Can someone confirm this is an issue or am I supposed to cast data to the exact type?

 Snippet
long Id = 1

Dim filterThisLong As IPredicate = (TblAccountTypeFields.AccountTypeId = Id)
Dim filterThisInt As IPredicate = (TblAccountTypeFields.AccountTypeId = CInt(Id))

'Create data collection
entityData = New EntityCollection(New MyTestEntityFactory())

'Retrieve data
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(entityData, Nothing)

'Filter data
viewData = entityData.DefaultView

'This does not work - no error, but the view has no data
viewData.Filter = filterThisLong 

'This works - view contains data
viewData.Filter = filterThisInt 

Hi sbense,

The code below shows the problem. Can someone confirm this is an issue or am I supposed to cast data to the exact type?

You are supposed to provide the same type of the EntityField. If your code have a lot of casts like that you can add cast logic to your entities, overriding the FieldEntityProperties at yourEntity class.

David,

Thanks again for your help here. This solves the other issue I had with projections: http://www.llblgen.com/TinyForum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=3861

While I appreciate the need to have datatypes the same, I think the framework classes should raise an error if they do not match and let the developer handle it. This is better than getting no data returned and no indication that there is a problem with the types. It took me ages to figure it out because there was just no hint at the problem.

I think the framework classes should raise an error if they do not match and let the developer handle it.

Yes. +1

In v2.5 it will convert the value to compare with to the type of the field and to the compare, to avoid these issues. If you compare a string with an int, it still won't work, but that's pretty obvious

Otis wrote:

If you compare a string with an int, it still won't work, but that's pretty obvious

Yes agreed. It is less obvious when arguments to methods which then go on to construct IPredicate filters are differentiating between long and int types. As was the case with my sample instance.