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RE: [grouper-dev] exception handling and finders


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  • From: "GW Brown, Information Systems and Computing" <>
  • To: Chris Hyzer <>, Tom Zeller <>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: RE: [grouper-dev] exception handling and finders
  • Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:29:42 +0000

We definitely support multi-valued subject attributes. So long as getAttributeValue returns the first value of any multi-value, and getAttributeValues can still return a Set of a single String I think the changes are OK. Returning unmodifiable Sets sounds right - there may be quite a few other places where we should return unmodifiable collections.

Gary

--On 21 March 2009 23:39 -0400 Chris Hyzer
<>
wrote:



I made these changes to the Subject API, though I uncovered a dilemma.



While taking the liberty of formatting the code, and removing eclipse
warnings of the subject API per the discussion below, I added generic
declarations to all of the collection types. It turns out I believe that
Subject.getAttributes() should return a map of string keys and a
multivalued string value (currently it is only the vague Map return
type). It should be: Map<String, Set<String>>. The JDBC and JNDI
builtin implementations do this ok. However, the handful of Grouper
implementations only return a Map<String, String> assuming that there are
no multivalued subject attributes, and RegistrySubject does not really
implement another method correctly either.



So, first of all if this is not the correct return type, or if we don't
support multivalued subject attributes, let me know and maybe this is off
base.



If so, then I propose an easy solution though it might require people to
change their code if they have a custom subject implementations…



1. I suggest we make a BaseSubject just like we have a
BaseSourceAdapter (and use it for our built-ins as examples). If
everyone who implements they source adapter has subclassed the
BaseSourceAdapter, then they have no work to do to upgrade to the new
finders, since I made methods in the abstract class (though they are
deprecated, so at some point you need to change your code). Also, I
think there is shared logic so implementers don't have to do that
much… but we can still code to the interface Subject.

2. I think instead of having all Subjects return a map of String to
Set<String> (since that would mean the subject object would probably keep
its representation like that internally, which means a LOT of Set objects
which are not needed), we should get rid of that method
(getAttributes()). I think it isn't really used anyways, and if so,
only to get a list of attribute names.

3. We should add two methods: Set<String> getAttributeNames(), and
boolean isAttributeMultiValued(attributeName)

4. We can document that we assume getAttributeValue(attributeName)
and getAttributeValues(attributeName) are only called when the attribute
is known to be single or multivalued (should check if so)… this way
everything is as expected without extraneous Set's.



In general, returning a set for an attribute value is dangerous anyway,
because if it is not Unmodifiable, then the caller can use it to edit the
subject's attributes. And if it is unmodifiable, then it is another
layer to extraneous objects (though I guess
getAttributeValues(attributeName) should return Unmodifiable sets)



Btw. I think the API and UI and WS (the main consumers
ofSubject.getAttributes() would not even be affected by this change…
see, I said it wasn't heavily used… J



Thoughts?



Thanks,

Chris



Ps. At some point I would like to continue a conversation we had last
year with the core committers about the value of lack of eclipse
warnings, since some of the warnings are useful, and if there are too
many, the useful ones are diluted and not seen…







From:


[mailto:]
On Behalf Of Tom
Zeller
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 12:47 PM
To: Chris Hyzer
Cc:

Subject: Re: [grouper-dev] exception handling and finders






One open issue is should we do the same thing to the subject API (make
exceptions unchecked, and finders which return 1 result should take a
param as to whether or not null is an exception)? I would have already
except I believe it would change the interface of custom sources, so
people would need to tweak them and recompile before upgrading to 1.5…
is this ok?



The subject API seems simple enough that we should opt for consistency,
i.e. make the subject API like grouper.



Should we roll the subject API into grouper as we did ldappc ?



TomZ



----------------------
GW Brown, Information Systems and Computing




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