• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

Use of DAO as a Command?

 
Greenhorn
Posts: 2
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Hi, I need an advice w.r.t. one of the design approach we are considering.

We are implementing a Java web service provider which acts on data in relational database. Our propose classes are:

1. IDAO - interface with execute() method
2. GetCustomerDAO and UpdateCustomerDAO implements IDAO
3. DAOFactory - List of DAO to be reads configuration file which has a mapping of DAOs to be invoked for a particular service.
4. ServiceImpl - contains getCustomer, updateCustomer methods. The service uses DAOFactory to get list of DAO objects and it then iterates over the list and calls DAO.execute method.

I think it's more of like we have converted DAOs in to Command. However, I don't quite like this approach for some reasons:
- In ServiceImpl : you can't influence the flow of DAOs being called. For e.g. after execution of 1st DAO if I don't want to execute 2nd DAO but execute 3rd DAO, it's hard to have this implemented.
- besides not sure if we can conceptually use DAO. because a Command object can have business logic, however DAOs should only deal with aspects of reading and writing data to db.

Please let me know your views whether the design looks appropriate. thanks
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 93
IntelliJ IDE VI Editor Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I don't like it because you'll have a lot of classes, it's a very fine grain approach. For each operation on DB you'll have a class!, I think if you
have a few different types of operations it would work, but when your app begins to grow up it could be harder to maintain.

May be you could make another version of Command pattern. Instead of a simple execute() method you could make an interface with
several methods like get, list, update, create, delete... or so. But I think it's better to have a DAO for each resource where all
operations to DB are implemented.

 
Rohit Agrawal
Greenhorn
Posts: 2
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
thanks Eduardo . I do have some good points of why you may want to split DAO classes.

Typically I have seen DAOs that does various operations - create, delete, update, etc. Depending on the complexity of the underling business entity it's dealing with, the DAO class tend to become huge (>800LOC) over time or right away. Hence I like to split the DAO class, one each for every operation on the entity. This helps in maintenance and ease of understanding.

I am also considering another approach of simply using DAOFactory and invoking DAOs at runtime as per business logic. e.g.
IDAO dao = DAOFactory.getDAO('GetCustomerDAO')
ResultHolder rh = dao.execute();
CustomerData cd = rh.getCustomerData();
...do some processing
if (cd.status='Active') {
//calculate next review date;
IDAO dao2 = DAOFactory.getDAO('UpdateCustomerDAO')
ResultHolder rh = dao.execute('reviewdate');
}
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 34
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Eduardo Yañez Parareda wrote:I don't like it because you'll have a lot of classes, it's a very fine grain approach. For each operation on DB you'll have a class!, I think if you
have a few different types of operations it would work, but when your app begins to grow up it could be harder to maintain.



More classes, yes, but there are several advantages with this approach

1) You don't have large classes containing several large methods that are often each doing essentially the same thing with slight variations.

2) You can eliminate duplicate boiler plate code by creating DAO abstract command classes for CRUD operations. These classes would call strategies (if necessary) for the slight variations such as selection criteria and populating the domain objects. This makes for nicely cohesive classes that are very testable because they abide by design principles such as IOC, DIP, Hollywood, Open-Close, etc.

3) The client of the DAO can in some cases be abstract, not even knowing what DAO it is calling - just passing along the request type and params, and the command pattern takes care of invoking the right DAO. With the more traditional DAO aproach, your client controller has to interpret the request and hard code a call to a corresponding DAO operation. That means a lot of duplicate client controller code too. With the DAO command approach, some web requests can be handled abstractly from the web server all the way down to the DAO, with no specialized code except for the simple DAO strategies for selection criteria, populating, etc.

4) When you have DAO command classes, they can be composed together as decorators to map to multiple sources. For example, if you need to write to the DB and also to memcached, you need two different mappers.

5) For read operations that attempt to read from cache, the DAO command classes can be composed together following the chain or responsibility pattern. The first DAO, which attempts to read from cache, does not contain the rquested data, will pass the request along to the next DAO in the chain (which reads from the DB), and update itself with the data when it comes back up the chain. Subsequent calls for the same data will not need to go back down the chain of DAOs.

To me, this approach makes a lot of sense. I've always thought it was strange that in JAVA EE, the command pattern and/or DI is used from web server to container, from container to servlet, from servlet to controller (using front controller pattern), but after that, it stops and the controller has to translate the request into a hard-code DAO call. For more complicated requests, this may be necessary, but not for the simpler ones (of which there are many). I worked on an open source effort for Lockheed Martin that successfully used this approach, http://github.com/lmco/eurekastreams. It's a facebook-like app for the workplace.

Rohit Agrawal wrote:I don't quite like this approach for some reasons:
- In ServiceImpl : you can't influence the flow of DAOs being called. For e.g. after execution of 1st DAO if I don't want to execute 2nd DAO but execute 3rd DAO, it's hard to have this implemented.
- besides not sure if we can conceptually use DAO. because a Command object can have business logic, however DAOs should only deal with aspects of reading and writing data to db.



As I think you mentioned in a later post, for more complicated services, you can just create a specialized service implementation and hard code which DAO commands are called.

Using DAO commands does not force business logic to be in the DAO. The logic is in still in the service, and also in the factory that wires the DAOs.
 
Bob Lawson
Ranch Hand
Posts: 34
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Rohit Agrawal wrote:1. IDAO - interface with execute() method
2. GetCustomerDAO and UpdateCustomerDAO implements IDAO
3. DAOFactory - List of DAO to be reads configuration file which has a mapping of DAOs to be invoked for a particular service.
4. ServiceImpl - contains getCustomer, updateCustomer methods. The service uses DAOFactory to get list of DAO objects and it then iterates over the list and calls DAO.execute method.



As an alternative to step 4, the factory could just create a composite command (composite pattern) that itself loops through each of its sub-commands, calling each. A good example of this can be found in the 'Head First Design Patterns" book, later in the Command Pattern chapter.
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic