Thanks,
Bill

Not good.  In another post today, I explored the issue of limiting my data being presented to the user because of bandwidth constraints. One way for me to do this easily would be to simply set a filter on one of the custom properties of the BO.  Since I cannot do this, my problem has become gargantuan.  Since the property is there, there must be a way to do this kind of filtering.  I cannot give up, yet.

Let me make sure I get this....if I had a customer business object with a really cool custom property like TotalOrders, it is impossible for me using that custom property to display all customers with more than 100 orders.  Is that right?

I am starting to see that.  Nevertheless, I am still quite confused about the custom property thing.  To me, the business object is an ideal place for some of these things.  The database is not the best location.  You and Trent are suggesting that I need to relocate the business logic back into the database.

Here is an example of some custom properties on the Parts business object that I have (declarations/tags/comments removed for brevity):

public int OnWorkOrder
{
    get
    {
        string mPartindex = this.partindex.ToString();
        return (int)ExecuteScalar("spx_GetAmountOnWorkOrder '" + mPartindex + "'");
    }
}

public int OnSalesOrder
{
    get
    {
        string mPartindex = this.partindex.ToString();
        return (int)ExecuteScalar("spx_GetAmountOnSalesOrder '" + mPartindex + "'");
    }
}

public int RequiredQty
{
    get
    {
        int mReqQty = (this.minstocklevel - this.onhandqty) + (this.OnSalesOrder - this.OnWorkOrder);
        if (mReqQty < 0) mReqQty = 0;
        return mReqQty;
    }
}

As you can see, the logic becomes rather complex.  Easily handled in the business object.  The stored procedure that would handle this same stuff would be atrocious...doable, but a near nightmare to construct.  I really do not want to put all this back into the DB.  If I do, then these custom properties become unneeded.  In fact, I cannot see a good use for custom properties, since all of this can be done in the DB.

Bill

ArgumentException
  An item with the same key has already been added.

Source     : mscorlib

Stack Trace:
   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add)
   at MicroFour.StrataFrame.UI.Windows.Forms.BrowseDialogSearchingEventArgs..ctor(BrowseDialog Browse, WhereStatementCollection WhereStatements)
   at MicroFour.StrataFrame.UI.Windows.Forms.BrowseDialogwindow.ExecuteSearch()
   at MicroFour.StrataFrame.UI.Windows.Forms.BrowseDialogwindow.tsiSearch_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripButton.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativewindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativewindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Nativewindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Thought I had something there...I was going to plop a browsedialog on the form and force the user to work through that (with the custom property set to not visible).  Not sure what that error means, but I assume it is saying, "Uh uh uh!".  That won't work, I guess.

While our apps are not 'net based I think our general approach could be useful to you:

1) We have a BO for a particualar table. In this exaple the PUN (Packing Unit) table.

2) This BO has number of methods that are used to retrieve data. In the example below it is calling a proc that returns data just for a specific Station Type (which isn't part of the PUN table) and if the PUN is in stock or not and the order in which we want to data to be returned. In our case stp_boPUN is very generic and extracts and sorts data in various ways depending what parameters are passed in

    ' Populate the BO with all in stock PUNs for a specific station type.
    Public Sub GetPUNInStock(ByVal StationType As String)

        Dim ProcParam(2) As System.Data.SqlClient.SqlParameter
        ProcParam(0) = New System.Data.SqlClient.SqlParameter
        With ProcParam(0)
            .ParameterName = "@INSStationType"
            .DbType = Data.DbType.String
            .Direction = Data.ParameterDirection.Input
            .Value = StationType
        End With
        ProcParam(1) = New System.Data.SqlClient.SqlParameter
        With ProcParam(1)
            .ParameterName = "@InStock"
            .DbType = Data.DbType.Boolean
            .Direction = Data.ParameterDirection.Input
            .Value = 1
        End With
        ProcParam(2) = New System.Data.SqlClient.SqlParameter
        With ProcParam(2)
            .ParameterName = "@OrderBy"
            .DbType = Data.DbType.Int16
            .Direction = Data.ParameterDirection.Input
            .Value = 1
        End With

        Dim cmd As New SqlCommand
        cmd.CommandType = Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure
        cmd.CommandText = "stp_boPUN"
        cmd.Parameters.AddRange(ProcParam)

        Me.TMSFillUsingCommand(cmd)
        cmd.Dispose()
    End Sub

3) Me.TMSFillUsingCommand(cmd) is executed to fill the PUN BO with just the data we want.

4) Me.TMSFillUsingCommand is just a wrapper we have for all our DAL code that does things like error handling / retries etc. The main point is that, in the end, it executes the standard SF fill method using a command string.

5) In our form we would execute Me.boPUN.GetPUNInStock(StationType) and that's it. If the BO was the basis for a grid (we use DevExpress) the grid is automatically refreshed with the new data set.

Bottom line is that we use specific stored procs to do the work and only return the data we want.

Cheers, Peter