[TransWarp] Constraints on model attributes

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 12:43 PM 7/27/03 +0200, Roché Compaan wrote:

>I've played around more and _onLink and _onUnlink methods are the
>perfect place for validation and constraint hooks. I don't think
>anything needs to be done to model features or datatypes. Here's a
>crude example:
>
>class TextLine(model.Attribute):
>
>     referencedType = model.String
>     title = u''
>     description = u''
>
>     def constraint(self, value):
>         return '\n' not in value and '\r' not in value
>
>     def _validate(self, element, item):
>
>         if not isinstance(item, unicode):
>             raise TypeError
>
>         if self.constraint is not None and not self.constraint(item):
>             raise ValidationError
>
>     def _onLink(self, element, item, posn):
>         self._validate(element, item)
>
>
>class Person(model.Element):
>
>     class Name(TextLine):
>         title = u'Name'
>         description = u'''Person's name'''
>
>Do you see any problem with this approach?

Not as such; but it would be a lot simpler this way:

class TextLine(model.String):

     def mdl_normalize(klass, value):
         value = unicode(value)   # this should raise TypeError if not 
convertible
         if '\n' in value or '\r' in value:
             raise ValueError("Multi-line text")
         return value


class Person(model.Element):
     class Name(model.Attribute):
         referencedType = TextLine
         # ...

This is somewhat more reusable, as well.  I prefer to distinguish between 
constraints applying to the *type* of the feature, and those that are 
specific to the feature itself.  The latter kind usually involve conditions 
imposed by other features of the same object.