ABAP "SUPPLY": how to use a data-providing function module? - initialization

In the SUPPLY automatically-generated function modules, there can be seen the following comments:
* General Notes
* =============
* A common scenario for a supply method is to aquire key
* informations from the parameter <parent_element> and then
* to invoke a data provider.
* A free navigation thru the context, especially to nodes on
* the same or deeper hierachical level is strongly discouraged,
* because such a strategy may easily lead to unresolvable
* situations!!
*
** data declaration
* DATA lt_nod TYPE wd_this->Elements_nod.
* DATA ls_nod LIKE LINE OF lt_nod.
** #TODO compute values
** e.g. call a data providing **FuBa**
I understand the dangers of navigating through nodes that have an associated Supply Function but haven't been initialized yet - this basically leads to dead locks.
What i'd like to know is what's a FuBa, or data provider and how to use that - all the examples i've found only supply data for a node in a trivial manner, and don't tackle this problem.
Is that some way to register the nodes to be updated later... or... dunno ?

In this case, data provider is not a technical term, it's just some coding that provides the data you want to add to the context. Whatever that may be depends on your application context - anything from a local or remote function module or method call, a call to your assistance class or even - if you really want to adopt bad coding habits - to a direct database access.
FuBa is an abbreviation of Funktionsbaustein = function module.

Related

Are Child Packages safe in ADA?

I am very new to ADA language and, during my learning process, I have been seeing a lot of examples which uses this ADA functionality.
It seems to me that it could be useful only for unit testing in order to being able to test the private types and methods of the parent package, but I don't see any advantage for coding in such way, it seems that breaks encapsulation.
Is it a good practice to use them apart from unit testing?
Child packages can be seen as an extension for their parent.
It can be used, for example, to provide functionalities that are not directly linked to your base package.
The typical example is the Input-Output package.
Imagine the following package :
package Temperature is
type Kelvin_Temp is private;
type Celsius_Temp is private;
function build (temp : Positive) return Kelvin_Temp;
function build (temp : Integer) return Celsius_Temp;
function to_celsius (temp : in Kelvin_Temp) return Celsius_Temp;
function to_kelvin (temp : in Celsius_Temp) return Kelvin_Temp;
private
type Kelvin_Temp is 0.0 .. 10_000.0;
type Celsius_Temp is -273.0 .. 10_000.0;
end Temperature;
This package provides basic operations directly linked to the types defined.
What if you want to extend it to provide I/O in text format ?
You can decide to put operations inside the Temperature package but if you want to add other types of I/O such as database I/O, you will have a lot of functions that are not directly linked to your types inside the same file.
You can define
package Temperature.Text_IO is
procedure Put(temp : Celsius_Temp);
procedure Put(temp : Kelvin_Temp);
end Temperature.Text_IO;
and
package Temperature.Database_IO is
procedure insert (Temp : in Celsius_Temp);
procedure insert (Temp : in Kelvin_Temp);
end Temperature.Database_IO;
That's exactly what is done with IO in the standard library
From an encapsulation point of view, your private types will remain private outside of the package hierarchy so you don't break encapsulation.
You can take a look at this presentation given at FOSDEM 2018, discussing (private) packages and enforcing safety:
https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/ada_safety/
Child packages exist to allow programming by extension, but as implemented they also provide a way to bypass the information hiding that pkgs are supposed to enforce.
While it can be convenient to design a hierarchy of pkgs sharing some hidden information, programming by extension is generally a poor idea that emphasizes ease of writing over ease of reading, and coding over software engineering. You might be interested in the article "Breaking the Ada Privacy Act", available here.

Doctrine find() and querybuilder() return different result in PHPUnit test

With Doctrine and Symfony in my PHPUnit test method :
// Change username for user #1 (Sheriff Woody to Chuck Norris)
$form = $crawler->selectButton('Update')->form([
'user[username]' => 'Chuck Norris',
]);
$client->submit($form);
// Find user #1
$user = $em->getRepository(User::class)->find(1);
dump($user); // Username = "Sheriff Woody"
$user = $em->createQueryBuilder()
->from(User::class, 'user')
->andWhere('user.id = :userId')
->setParameter('userId', 1)
->select('
user
')
->getQuery()
->getOneOrNullResult()
;
dump($user); // Username = "Chuck Norris"
Why my two methods to fetch the user #1 return different results ?
diagnosis / explanation
I assume* you already created the User object you're editing via crawler before in that function and checked that it is there. This leads to it being a managed entity.
It is in the nature of data, to not sync itself magically with the database, but some automatism must be in place or some method executed to sync it.
The find() method will always try to use the cache (unless explicitly turned off, also see side note). The query builder won't, if you explicitly call getResult() (or one of its varieties), since you explicitly want a query to be executed. Executing a different query might lead to the cache not being hit, producing the current result. (it should update the first user object though ...) [updated, due to comment from Arno Hilke]
((( side note: Keeping objects in sync is hard. It's mainly about having consistency in the database, but all of ACID is wanted. Any process talking to the database should assume, that it only is working with the state at the moment of its first query, and is the only user of the database. Unless additional constraints must be met and inconsistent reads can occur, in which case isolation levels should be raised (See also: transactions or more precisely: isolation). So, automatically syncing is usually not wanted. Doctrine uses certain assumptions for performance gains (mainly: isolation / locking is optimistic). However, in your particular case, all of those things are of no actual concern... since you actually want a non-repeatable read. )))
(* otherwise, the behavior you're seeing would be really unexpected)
solution
One easy solution would be, to actively and explicitly sync the data from the database by either calling $em->refresh($user), or - before fetching the user again - to call $em->clear(), which will detach all entities (clearing the cache, which might have a noticable performance impact) and allowing you to call find again with the proper results being returned.
Please note, that detaching entities means, that any object previously returned from the entity manager should be discarded and fetched again (not via refresh).
alternate solution 1 - everything is requests
instead of checking the database, you could instead do a different request to a page that displays the user's name and checks that it has changed.
alternate solution 2 - using only one entity manager
using only one entity manager (that is: sharing the entity manager / database in the unit test with the server on the request) may be a reasonable solution, but it comes with its own set of problems. mainly omitted commits and flushes may avoid detection.
alternate solution 3 - using multiple entity managers
using one entity manager to set up the test, since the server is using a new entity manager to perform its work, you should theoretically - to do this actually properly - create yet another entity manager to check the server's behavior.
comment: the alternate solutions 1,2 and 3 would work with the highest isolation level, the initial solution probably wouldn't.

Where should I put business logic intended to transform data meant for the ngrx store: into effects or reducers?

My question relates to ngrx effects and reducers.
I need to transform data retrieved from the backend before putting it into the ngrx store. The data retrieved from the backend is an plain array of Message (Message is a custom type in my application):
Message[]
I need to transform the array into the following:
Map<string, Message[]>
Basically I am grouping a user's messages by the counterparty (recipient or sender) ID (the key).
I am not sure where to perform the transformation from Message[] to Map<string, Message[]>: should I put the transformation business logic into the #Effect or into the reducer function?
The transformation could go into either the effect or the reducer.
If there were any validation that would need to be performed, I'd put it in the effect - where I'd have the option of dispatching an error action.
Otherwise, I'd put it into the reducer, as that's where I'd typically be transforming action payloads into state.
There is another option, too: you could use a selector. That is, the messages could be stored in the state as a simple array and a selector could be used to transform the state's messages, grouping them by counterparty - or whatever. If I had multiple ways of grouping messages, this is the option that I'd choose.
The #ngrx/example-app contains some examples of selectors:
/**
* A selector function is a map function factory. We pass it parameters and it
* returns a function that maps from the larger state tree into a smaller
* piece of state. This selector simply selects the `books` state.
*
* Selectors are used with the `select` operator.
*
* ```ts
* class MyComponent {
* constructor(state$: Observable<State>) {
* this.booksState$ = state$.select(getBooksState);
* }
* }
* ```
*/
export const getBooksState = (state: State) => state.books
The way i do it is to fetch and transform data in a service just like in the old days.
Effects react to an action and make the call through the service to get the data back and dispatch other actions based on the responses it receives.
This makes testing much easier since the service is kept separate from the effect which main purpose is to react on a certain action, not packaging data.
Reducer can be used for this but again you should keep it clean for readability purposes
My opinions:
Data retrieved from backend will be kept unchanged in the store.
Using selectors as your business logic (combine, transform and etc.) for the dumb components.
Maybe the only transformation is to use normalizr to flat the data.

Query workflow tasks based on custom property with other criteria than equals

I have the need to construct a WorkflowTaskQuery with a custom workflow model date as criteria. The criteria needs to be "currentDate >= myCustomDate".
I have noticed that it is possible to add custom properties to the WorkflowTaskQuery but looking into the implementation it seems like those properties all are added as equals-criterias. (reference(4.2.x): org.alfresco.repo.workflow.activiti.ActivitiWorkflowEngine.addTaskPropertiesToQuery)
To get all active tasks and do the filtering on the returned result will not be a good approach since there will be thousands of running workflow tasks in this implementation.
The only other approach I can think of would be to subclass both WorkflowTaskQuery and ActivitiWorkflowEngine and rewrite some private methods (like createRuntimeTaskQuery) and handle my special cases on my own there. (Activiti has methods like greaterThan and so on when searching for tasks based on variables....)
If anyone have any better suggestions, please feel free to share them with me :)
We are implementing a solution that drives Activiti using the Rest interface and have successfully implemented task queries using the POST /rest/service/query/task
The body of the request contains the conditions and the operator to use in query can have the following values: "equals", "notEquals", "equalsIgnoreCase", "notEqualsIgnoreCase", "lessThan", "greaterThan", "lessThanOrEquals", "greaterThanOrEquals" and "like".
Now, with that said.....I'm not sure I understand your query.
currentData >= customDate, obviously currentDate is self explanatory, but is customDate a process instance variable or a task local variable? It may impact the format of the query.

Can Code be Protected From Rogue Callers In Ada?

I'm a fairly new Ada programmer. I have read the book by Barnes (twice I might add) and even managed to write a fair terminal program in Ada. My main language is C++ though.
I am currently wondering if there is a way to "protect" subroutine calls in Ada, perhaps in Ada 2012 (of which I know basically nothing). Let me explain what I mean (although in C++ terms).
Suppose you have a class Secret like this:
class Secret
{
private:
int secret_int;
public:
Set_Secret_Value( int i );
}
Now this is the usual stuff, dont expose secret_int, manipulate it only through access functions. However, the problem is that anybody with access to an object of type Secret can manipulate the value, whether that particular code section is supposed to do it or not. So the danger of rogue altering of secret_int has been reduced to anybody altering secret_int through the permitted functions, even if it happens in a code section that's not supposed to manipulate it.
To remedy that I came up with the following construct
class Secret
{
friend class Secret_Interface;
private:
int secret_int;
Set_Secret_Value( int i );
Super_Secret_Function();
};
class Secret_Interface
{
friend class Client;
private:
static Set_Secret_Value( Secret &rc_secret_object, int i )
{
rc_secret_object.Set_Secret( i );
}
};
class Client
{
Some_Function()
{
...
Secret_Interface::Set_Secret_Value( c_object, some-value );
...
}
}
Now the class Secret_Interface can determine which other classes can use it's private functions and by doing so, indirectly, the functions of class Secret that are exposed to Secret_Interface. This way class Secret still has private functions that can not be called by anybody outside the class, for instance function Super_Secret_Function().
Well I was wondering if anything of this sort is possible in Ada. Basically my desire is to be able to say:
Code A may only be executed by code B but not by anybody else
Thanks for any help.
Edit:
I add a diagram here with a program structure like I have in mind that shows that what I mean here is a transport of a data structure across a wide area of the software, definition, creation and use of a record should happen in code sections that are otherwise unrleated
I think the key is to realize that, unlike C++ and other languages, Ada's primary top-level unit is the package, and visibility control (i.e. public vs. private) is on a per-package basis, not a per-type (or per-class) basis. I'm not sure I'm saying that correctly, but hopefully things will be explained below.
One of the main purposes of friend in C++ is so that you can write two (or more) closely related classes that both take part in implementing one concept. In that case, it makes sense that the code in one class would be able to have more direct access to the code in another class, since they're working together. I assume that in your C++ example, Secret and Client have that kind of close relationship. If I understand C++ correctly, they do all have to be defined in the same source file; if you say friend class Client, then the Client class has to be defined somewhere later in the same source file (and it can't be defined earlier, because at that point the methods in Secret or Secret_Interface haven't yet been declared).
In Ada, you can simply define the types in the same package.
package P is
type Secret is tagged private;
type Client is tagged private;
-- define public operations for both types
private
type Secret is tagged record ... end record;
type Client is tagged record ... end record;
-- define private operations for either or both types
end P;
Now, the body of P will contain the actual code for the public and private operations of both types. All code in the package body of P has access to those things defined in P's private part, regardless of which type they operate on. And, in fact, all code has access to the full definitions of both types. This means that a procedure that operates on a Client can call a private operation that operates on a Secret, and in fact it can read and write a Secret's record components directly. (And vice versa.) This may seem bizarre to programmers used to the class paradigm used by most other OOP languages, but it works fine in Ada. (In fact, if you don't need Secret to be accessible to anything else besides the implementation of Client, the type and its operations can be defined in the private part of P, or the package body.) This arrangement doesn't violate the principles behind OOP (encapsulation, information hiding), as long as the two types are truly two pieces of the implementation of one coherent concept.
If that isn't what you want, i.e. if Secret and Client aren't that closely related, then I would need to see a larger example to find out just what kind of use case you're trying to implement.
MORE THOUGHTS: After looking over your diagram, I think that the way you're trying to solve the problem is inferior design--an anti-pattern, if you will. When you write a "module" (whatever that means--a class or package, or in some cases two or more closely related classes or packages cooperating with each other), the module defines how other modules may use it--what public operations it provides on its objects, and what those operations do.
But the module (let's call it M1) should work the same way, according to its contract, regardless of what other module calls it, and how. M1 will get a sequence of "messages" instructing it to perform certain tasks or return certain information; M1 should not care where those messages are coming from. In particular, M1 should not be making decisions about the structure of the clients that use it. By having M1 decree that "procedure XYZ can only be called from package ABC", M1 is imposing structural requirements on the clients that use it. This, I believe, causes M1 to be too tightly coupled to the rest of the program. It is not good design.
However, it may make sense for the module that uses M1 to exercise some sort of control like that, internally. Suppose we have a "module" M2 that actually uses a number of packages as part of its implementation. The "main" package in M2 (the one that clients of M2 use to get M2 to perform its task) uses M1 to create a new object, and then passes that object to several other packages that do the work. It seems like a reasonable design goal to find a way that M2 could pass that object to some packages or subprograms without giving them the ability to, say, update the object, but pass it to other packages or subprograms that would have that ability.
There are some solutions that would protect against most accidents. For example:
package M1 is
type Secret is tagged private;
procedure Harmless_Operation (X : in out Secret);
type Secret_With_Updater is new Secret with null record;
procedure Dangerous_Operation (X : in out Secret_With_Updater);
end M1;
Now, the packages that could take a "Secret" object but should not have the ability to update it would have procedures defined with Secret'Class parameters. M2 would create a Secret_With_Updater object; since this object type is in Secret'Class, it could be passed as a parameter to procedures with Secret'Class parameters. However, those procedures would not be able to call Dangerous_Operation on their parameters; that would not compile.
A package with a Secret'Class parameter could still call the dangerous operation with a type conversion:
procedure P (X : in out Secret'Class) is
begin
-- ...
M1.Secret_With_Updater(X).Dangerous_Operation;
-- ...
end P;
The language can't prevent this, because it can't make Secret_With_Updater visible to some packages but not others (without using a child package hierarchy). But it would be harder to do this accidentally. If you really wish to go further and prevent even this (if you think there will be a programmer whose understanding of good design principles is so poor that they'd be willing to write code like this), then you could go a little further:
package M1 is
type Secret is tagged private;
procedure Harmless_Operation (X : in out Secret);
type Secret_Acc is access all Secret;
type Secret_With_Updater is tagged private;
function Get_Secret (X : Secret_With_Updater) return Secret_Acc;
-- this will be "return X.S"
procedure Dangerous_Operation (X : in out Secret_With_Updater);
private
-- ...
type Secret_With_Updater is tagged record
S : Secret_Acc;
end record;
-- ...
end M1;
Then, to create a Secret, M2 would call something that creates a Secret_With_Updater that returns a record with an access to a Secret. It would then pass X.Get_Secret to those procedures which would not be allowed to call Dangerous_Operation, but X itself to those that would be allowed. (You might also be able to declare S : aliased Secret, declare Get_Secret to return access Secret, and implement it with return X.S'access. This may avoid a potential memory leak, but it may also run into accessibility-check issues. I haven't tried this.)
Anyway, perhaps some of these ideas could help accomplish what you want to accomplish without introducing unnecessary coupling by forcing M1 to know about the structure of the application that uses it. It's hard to tell because your description of the problem, even with the diagram, is still at too abstract a level for me to see what you really want to do.
You could do this by using child packages:
package Hidden is
private
A : Integer;
B : Integer;
end Hidden;
and then
package Hidden.Client_A_View is
function Get_A return Integer;
procedure Set_A (To : Integer);
end Hidden.Client_A_View;
Then, Client_A can write
with Hidden.Client_A_View;
procedure Client_A is
Tmp : Integer;
begin
Tmp := Hidden.Client_A_View.Get_A;
Hidden.Client_A_View.Set_A (Tmp + 1);
end Client_A;
Your question is extremely unclear (and all the C++ code doesn't help explaining what you need), but if your point is that you want a type to have some publicly accessible operations, and some private operations, then it is easily done:
package Example is
type Instance is private;
procedure Public_Operation (Item : in out Instance);
private
procedure Private_Operation (Item : in out Instance);
type Instance is ... -- whatever you need it to be
end Example;
The procedure Example.Private_Operation is accessible to children of Example. If you want an operation to be purely internal, you declare it only in the package body:
package body Example is
procedure Internal_Operation (Item : in out Instance);
...
end Example;
Well I was wondering if anything of this sort is possible in Ada. Basically my desire is to be able to say:
Code A may only be executed by code B but not by anybody else
If limited to language features, no.
Programmatically, code execution can be protected if the provider must be provided an approved "key" to allow execution of its services, and only authorized clients are supplied with such keys.
Devising the nature, generation, and security of such keys is left as an exercise for the reader.

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