The other very useful aspect of the default value method is that is allow "resilience" of applications that may have had data or objects persisted into Neo but that have since had additional properties added to their domain model. The default value approach helps mitigate the need for a traditional "migration" process.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Neo] getProperty and null... From: Mattias Persson <matt...@neotechnology.com> Date: Tue, January 05, 2010 4:59 am To: Neo user discussions <user@lists.neo4j.org> Well, I think it's generally a good thing to be able to distinguish mandatory stuff from optional stuff... and that's the use case of those two methods. If you're getting a property which "must" be there in your domain you shouldn't have to check for null in all those cases, it feels so C-like to me... it should just return my value or else fail miserably so that I can see right then and there that there's a bug in my code (in this case the code which created my domain object or similar). And the one with the default value is great since I find myself passing in other things as well, not just null. I just couldn't live without any of them really. Just my point of view on this... 2010/1/5 Mattias Ask <mattias....@jayway.com>: > Hi everyone, > > I have an issue which I would like your opinion on... It's mostly a question > of code aesthetics, to be honest, but still... > > When I look in my code I see myNode.getProperty(SOME_PROP, null); > everyehere... The reason for this is that I if I called > myNode.getProperty(SOME_PROP) I'd have to check for org.neo4j.api.core. > NotFoundException everywhere that I read properties that are not mandatory. > What if myNode.getProperty(SOME_PROP) was to return null instead? The doc > says explicitly that you can't persist null. If > myNode.getProperty(SOME_PROP) where to return null this would mean, without > any doubt, that the property does not exist, right? The upside to this would > be that I wouldn't have to use the DefaultReturnValue null everywhere. And > the argument that I'd have to null-check everywhere is kind of moot since I > already return null as DefaultReturnValue. > > In my case my domain objects extend a NodeDelegate, which takes an > underlaying node in the constructor. This means that I can use > getProperty(SOME_PROP, null) everytime I call getProperty(SOME_PROP)... but > the question is if there are any downsides to doing that? What are your > thoughts on this? > > Best, > Mattias Ask > _______________________________________________ > Neo mailing list > User@lists.neo4j.org > [1]https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user > -- Mattias Persson, [matt...@neotechnology.com] Neo Technology, [2]www.neotechnology.com _______________________________________________ Neo mailing list User@lists.neo4j.org [3]https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user References 1. https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user 2. http://www.neotechnology.com/ 3. https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user _______________________________________________ Neo mailing list User@lists.neo4j.org https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user
