Some (perhaps all?) major J2EE servers allow a single CMP entity bean to obtain its data from multiple tables. I wish to use this feature to implement inheritance, and I would like to know if it is:
A) Allowed and appropriate under the existing J2EE standards and B) A good idea Suppose I have an entity bean called User. It has the following fields: Integer id; String username; String password; String type; and is mapped to a table called Users. I want to create a subclass of User called Researcher. I want the entity bean to have the following fields: Integer id; String username; String password; String type; String firstName; String lastName; String affiliation; I want to map the first four fields to the Users table and the last three fields to a Researchers table which would also have an id field for the purpose of joining the two together. Now I have two beans, one of which is logically a subclass of the other but which have no formal relationship as far as the EJB container goes, sharing the same database columns. When I want to manipulate all users I can use the User bean. When I want to deal with just Researchers, I can use the Researcher Bean. I can use the type field to inform me which users are also researchers if I ever need to know this. Is this legal and/or appropriate as far as the specs are concerned? Is it a good idea? If not, what other techniques are people using? Thanks, JWS =========================================================================== To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "signoff EJB-INTEREST". For general help, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "help".
