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Fields - advanced

Modularity

Genesis is modular, so if you have a dependency on another module (e.g. Auth), your project naturally inherits all the fields from that module and and they are available in your project.

It makes sense to re-use fields in dependent modules wherever possible; this cuts down your need to define field names that are unique across all modules and the project itself.

Scripting

GPAL is a scripting language that gives engineers plenty of advantages, especially when it comes to repetition.

For example, where you need to create a large number of table fields, say ALGO_PARAM_1 through to ALGO_PARAM_50, you can introduce for loops:

  val algoParamPrefix = "ALGO_PARAM_"
  for(i in 1..51) {
    field(name = algoParamPrefix + i, type = STRING)
  }

Default empty values and non-nullable STRING fields

You can define an empty and non-nullable STRING field as:

field(name = "REFERENCE", type = STRING, default = "", nullable = false)

danger

Although this is a valid set-up by ANSI SQL standards, Oracle currently doesn't support this configuration, leading to failed database writes.

If you want to implement this set-up in Oracle, you have a choice of how to do it:

Change all default values to have at least one character.

Provide a SysDef level override property: OracleEmptyStringFieldDefaultValue, with at least one character.

For maximum simplicity and compatibility, consider simply declaring the field as nullable:

field(name = "REFERENCE", type = STRING)

Precision and scale

The Genesis platform has predetermined column sizes, so the platform automatically translates the field types into the most suitable precision and scale.

The tables below provide details of the translation for each field type, depending on the database technology used.

Postgres

Genesis data type	POSTGRES data type
INT	int4
STRING	varchar(64)
DATE	int8
DATETIME	int8
ENUM	varchar(64)
LONG	int8
SHORT	int2
DOUBLE	float8
BIGDECIMAL	numeric(20, 5)
NANO_TIMESTAMP	int8
RAW	bytea

ORACLE

Genesis data type	ORACLE data type
INT	NUMBER(38,0)
STRING	VARCHAR2(64)
DATE	NUMBER
DATETIME	NUMBER
ENUM	VARCHAR2(64)
LONG	NUMBER
SHORT	NUMBER(38,0)
DOUBLE	FLOAT
BIGDECIMAL	NUMBER(20,5)
NANO_TIMESTAMP	NUMBER
RAW	BLOB

SQL SERVER

Genesis data type	SQL SERVER data type	SQL SERVER data length	SQL SERVER data scale	SQL SERVER data precision
INT	int	4		10
STRING	nvarchar	64
DATE	bigint	8		19
DATETIME	bigint	8		19
ENUM	nvarchar	64
LONG	bigint	8		19
SHORT	smallint	2		5
DOUBLE	float	8		53
BIGDECIMAL	numeric	13	5	20
NANO_TIMESTAMP	bigint	8		19
RAW	varbinary	-1

Modularity​

Scripting​

Default empty values and non-nullable STRING fields​

Precision and scale​

Postgres​

ORACLE​

SQL SERVER​