Metadata Fields in EspoCRM

**arkadywtf** · 10-28-2022, 09:44 AM

Hi, so skipOrmDefs means the actual field wont be created in the database. I'll try to explain how's it different from notStorable field using Address Field as an example.

Let's say you want to add a Billing Address. After adding the address field to your entity you're actually getting 6 new field defs in entityDefs and 5 new columns in the database:

billingAddress (skipped)
billingAddressStreet -> billing_address_street
billingAddressCity -> billing_address_city
billingAddressState -> billing_address_state
billingAddressCountry -> billing_address_country
billingAddressPostalCode -> billing_address_postal_code

So if you were to unset skipOrmDefs then Espo would create an additional column in the database: billing_address. If you decided to set billingAddress as notStorable then the field would not load in UI as a combined field and you'd need to set street, city, state, country, postal code as individual fields in Layout Manager which would result in poorer UX.

So let's go to question 2:

Do we also need to create and define custom valueFactoryClassName and attributeExtractorClassName for the field to work correctly ?

It seems that currently it's not the case. Those classes seems to be part of a DTO pattern: Coding rules - EspoCRM Documentation. Instead of using:

Code:

$account->get('billingAddressStreet')

you shoud use

Code:

$account->getBillingAddress()

which will return an Address object. You can even chain methods:

Code:

$account->getBillingAddress()->getStreet()

Above is being done by valueFactoryClassName, while attributeExtractorClassName is used by setValueObject method. Instead of doing:

Code:

$account->set('billingAddressStreet', 'Clay Street')

you should do:

PHP Code:

$address = Espo\Core\Field\Address::createBuilder()
    ->setStreet($street)
    ->setCity($city)
    ->setState($state)
    ->setCountry($country)
    ->setPostalCode($postalCode)
    ->build();

or when you need to change one of the values:

PHP Code:

$address = $account->getBillingAddress()->withStreet('Clay Street');

then you can pass it to setBillingAddress as such:

PHP Code:

$account->setBillingAddress($address);

If skipOrmDefs is (not defined), does it default to false ?

As you can see here in the code, "skipOrmDefs": false is the same as empty, so it could be removed from Espo/Resources/metadata/fields/personName.json and the result would be the same.

If valueFactoryClassName and attributeExtractorClassName are (not defined), do they default to Espo\ORM\Value\ValueFactory and Espo\ORM\Value\AttributeExtractor respectively?

Seems to be the case. If they are not defined you won't be able to use "getValueObject" and "setValueObject" the way they are being used right now by for example getBillingAddress and setBillingAddress methods.

I'm not an original dev, so take it as my observations so far. I bet Espo team have more to say about that.

Metadata Fields in EspoCRM

Metadata Fields in EspoCRM

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