Swiss Magic Data -- Form Relationships

In this article we over view the swiss magic structure used to create the web interface to define form relationships. Recall that a swiss node of type XXX is implemented by the class I2CE_Swiss_XXX. All the classes mentioned are contained in the

I2CE/modules/Forms/modules/FormRelationships/lib

directory.

FormRelationship_Base

This is the base class which is sub-classed by all of the Swiss classes used to edit form Relationships.

FormRelationships

The root swiss node of a the form relationship editor has type FormRelationships. It has the following functionality:

• It is a container node which contains all of the form relationships.
• Creates a new form relationship with a given "Display Name" and "Short Name" by creating a new child magic data node. The new relationship can be based on:
  • Choosing a primary form
  • Choosing an existing relationship to copy from.

All children of this swiss node have type #FormRelationship.

FormRelationship

This is the swiss node that contains all the information about a particular form relationship.

It has the following functionality:

• Specify the form
• Specify the display name of this form in the relationship
• Specify the description of this form in the relationship
• links to the joined forms menu
• links to the menu for limiting this form
• links to the menu sql functions menu

The child swiss nodes are named:

• 'reporting_functions' with type #FormRelationship_ReportingFunctions
• 'joins' with type #FormRelationship_Joins
• 'where' #FormRelationship_Where

FormRelationship_Joins

This is the swiss node that contains all information about forms joined to the form of the parent swiss node. It has the functionality:

• Join in a form related the the form defined by parent swiss node

All children of this swiss node have type #FormRelationship_Join.

FormRelationship_Join

This is the swiss node that represents a form joined into the form relationship.

It subclasses #FormRelationship and has almost the same functionality and children. The difference is that:

• It does not link to the SQL Functions menu
• It shows how this form is joined to the parent form in the relationship (the primary form does not need this as it has no parent)
• It allows you to "drop empty rows."
  Note: The language should be cleaned up here as we use form relationships outside of the Custom

Reporting scenario. It means that a set of forms potentially satisfying a form relationship is will fail to satisfy the relationship if there is no form matching the where clause at this node.

FormRelationship_Where

This provides a where (sub)-clause for a form relationship. It has the following functionality:

• if not specified, allow you to specify the "type" of the node as either a logical operator (AND, OR, NOT, XOR) or as a limit on a field in the form
• if specifed, allows you to change the "type"

There is one child swiss node 'operands' which has type #FormRelationship_Where_Operands

Note: The functionality of this swiss node should probably be moved to a sub-module of the FormLimits modules

FormRelationship_Where_Operands

This node is used in the case where the parent swiss node is one of the logical operators AND, OR, NOT or XOR. It has the following functionality:

• Displays the existing operands
• Adds a new operand for the logical operators if possible (NOT has only one operand)
• Allows you to remove an operand

All children of this node are of type #FormRelationship_Where

Note: The functionality of this swiss node should probably be moved to a sub-module of the FormLimits modules

FormRelationship_ReportingFunctions

This swiss node is a container for all of the SQL functions that are defined for the form relationship. It has the following functionality:

• display the existing sql functions in the relationship
• adds in a place for a new sql function determined by "Short Name," a "Display Name" and a "Description"

All children of this node have type #FormRelationship_ReportingFunctions.

Note: This functionality should probably be moved to be a sub-module of Forms.

SQLFunction

This swiss node is used to define a SQL function in a relationship. It has the following functionality:

• edit the display name
• edit the description
• edit the SQL function which is applied to any of the form fields in the relationship
• choose the return type of the SQL function to be any of the (non-abstract) subclasses of I2CE_FormField.

Note: This functionality should probably be moved to be a sub-module of Forms.