ifEmpty not working?

montoyam

I have the following in my MVC project:

                    .Field(new Field("CaseActions.BillingAmount")
                        .SetFormatter(Format.IfEmpty(0))
                    )

however, when the postCreate code runs, this field is null and giving me issues in my function

                response.PostCreate += (sender, e) => _LogChange(db, "create", e.Id, e.Values);
                response.PostEdit += (sender, e) => _LogChange(db, "create", e.Id, e.Values);
                response.PostRemove += (sender, e) => _LogChange(db, "create", e.Id, e.Values);

I changed the javascript to add a default value of zero, so that seems to be a band-aid. Why is ifEmpty appear to not be working?

kthorngren

The IfEmpty docs state this:

Set the value to write to the database if an empty string is submitted from the client-side.

The value null is not an empty string, ie, "".

Kevin

montoyam

ah, so I would need to use a custom formatter. Seems like that would be a common thing.

allan

I’m not quite understanding. Are you submitting null from the client-side? If so how? Are you JSON encoding the data you are sending? We send data using HTTP parameters by default, so they are just string values - there is no way to represent types (or indeed null) hence the need for the IfEmpty formatter.

Allan

montoyam

sorry, yes, it is blank, not null.

So, my logging code was hanging on blanks until I added this function:

    public static class Extensions
    {
        public static string NullIfWhiteSpace(this string value)
        {
            if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(value)) { return null; }
            return value;
        }
    }

so now no errors and I don't have to default to a zero anymore.

        private void _LogChange(Database db, string action, object id, Dictionary<string, object> values)
        {
            var data = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(values);
            JObject json = JObject.Parse(data);
            DateTime localDate = DateTime.Now;

            db.Insert("CaseActions_History", new Dictionary<string, object>{
                    { "Action", action },
                    //{ "DataValues", JsonConvert.SerializeObject( values ) },
                    { "CaseActionID", id },
                    { "CaseID", json["CaseActions"]["CaseID"].ToString() },
                    { "ActionID", json["CaseActions"]["ActionID"].ToString() },
                    { "BillingAmount", json["CaseActions"]["BillingAmount"].ToString().NullIfWhiteSpace() },
                    { "BilledDate", json["CaseActions"]["BilledDate"].ToString().NullIfWhiteSpace() },
                    { "CaseDefendantID", json["CaseActions"]["CaseDefendantID"].ToString() },
                    { "ActionDate", json["CaseActions"]["ActionDate"].ToString() },
                    { "FollowUpDate", json["CaseActions"]["FollowUpDate"].ToString().NullIfWhiteSpace() },
                    { "ActionStatusID", json["CaseActions"]["ActionStatusID"].ToString() },
                    { "FollowUpStaffID", json["CaseActions"]["FollowUpStaffID"].ToString() },
                    { "ActionNote", json["CaseActions"]["ActionNote"].ToString() },
                    { "CompletedDate", json["CaseActions"]["CompletedDate"].ToString().NullIfWhiteSpace() },
                    { "EnteredBy", json["CaseActions"]["EnteredBy"].ToString() },
                    { "DateUpdated",localDate }
                });
        }

however, I just realized that it seems .SetFormatter(Format.IfEmpty(0)) is still not working (though I no longer require a zero, so I am going to remove this anyway).