Skip to content

Store Map values as Long instead of Int #1181

Description

@alghe-global

Is there an existing issue?

Use case

I am storing a mapping:

val mapping = mutableMapOf(
    "key1" to mutableMapOf(
        "subkey1" to 1L,
        "subkey2" to 1L,
        "subkey3" to 1L
    ),
   "key2" to 1L

that is represented in the data class as follows:

@Entity
data class MyDataClass(
    @Id var id: Long = 0,
    var mapping: MutableMap<String, Any>? = null

ObjectBox will store the Long values as Ints due to not being wide enough. These breaks use cases where we do want to store the Long values as Long and not as Ints (for example test cases that use the same generated mock data to store in the database and to test against).

Proposed solution

Have an annotation that tells ObjectBox to store Long values as Long.

Alternatives

Tried using a PropertyConverter however this breaks for the mapping I've provided.

Additional context

Kotlin
Android

Activity

  1. alghe-global commented on Jul 2, 2024

    @alghe-global
    Author

    Tried to workaround it by implementing:

    val mapping = mutableMapOf(
        "key1" to mutableMapOf(
            "subkey1" to 1L,
            "subkey2" to 1L,
            "subkey3" to 1L
        ),
        "key2" to mutableMapOf(
            "subkey4" to 1L
        )
    )

    and

    @Entity
    data class MyDataClass(
        @Id var id: Long = 0,
        var mapping: MutableMap<String, MutableMap<String, Long>? = null
    )

    however, ObjectBox still stores Long as Integer.

  2. greenrobot-team commented on Jul 3, 2024

    @greenrobot-team
    Member

    Thanks for this great issue! This behavior is due to ObjectBox using a FlexObjectConverter subclass by default for these "flex" properties, see their discussion in the docs, notably the converter class documentation.

    As you hinted at, try to override this with a specific converter. The built-in StringLongMapConverter should do what you want:

    @Convert(converter = StringLongMapConverter::class, dbType = ByteArray::class)
    var mapping: MutableMap<String, Any>? = null

    Note: labeled this issue with "more info required" so it will auto-close in a few days if there are no follow-up comments.

    Edit: also added this as an example in the docs linked above.

  3. alghe-global commented on Jul 3, 2024

    @alghe-global
    Author

    I've tried

    @Convert(converter = StringLongMapConverter::class, dbType = ByteArray::class)
    var mapping: MutableMap<String, Any>? = null

    however, the retrieved type from the database is still Integer instead of Long.


    Steps to reproduce

    1. Have the entity:
    import io.objectbox.annotation.Convert
    import io.objectbox.annotation.Id
    import io.objectbox.converter.StringLongMapConverter
    
    @Entity
    data class MyDataClass(
        @Id var id: Long = 0,
        @Convert(converter = StringLongMapConverter::class, dbType = ByteArray::class)
        var mapping: MutableMap<String, Any>? = null
    )
    1. Have the mock data generation source:
    class MockDataSource {
    
        fun generateData(): List<MyDataClass> {
            val mappingOne = mutableMapOf(
                "key1" to mutableMapOf(
                    "subkey1" to 1L,
                    "subkey2" to 1L,
                    "subkey3" to 1L
                ),
               "key2" to 1L
            )
    
            val mappingTwo = mutableMapOf(
                "key1" to mutableMapOf(
                    "subkey1" to 2L,
                    "subkey2" to 2L,
                    "subkey3" to 2L
                ),
               "key2" to 2L
            )
    
            val mappingThree = mutableMapOf(
                "key1" to mutableMapOf(
                    "subkey1" to 3L,
                    "subkey2" to 3L,
                    "subkey3" to 3L
                ),
               "key2" to 3L
            )
    
            val mappingsList = listOf(
                MyDataClass(
                    mapping = mappingOne
                ),
                MyDataClass(
                    mapping = mappingTwo
                ),
                MyDataClass(
                    mapping = mappingThree
                )
            )
    
            return mappingsList
        }
    }
    1. Test:
    fun `test MyDataClass`() {
        val mappingsList = MockDataSource().generateData()
    
        /** Insert test mappings into the database */
        boxStore.boxFor<MyDataClass>().put(mappingsList)
    
        <get query from database>
    
        assertEquals(mappingsList, queryResult)
    }

    I've left out <get query from database> since in my case it's convoluted (since it's Android with Jetpack Compose, I implement a repository and order based on field timestamp and return a flow - it'll be too long to write it here).

    Please note this is with ObjectBox v3.8.0 in Android using Kotlin

  4. alghe-global commented on Jul 4, 2024

    @alghe-global
    Author

    I've tried the converter using the second layout and it worked.

  5. alghe-global commented on Jul 4, 2024

    @alghe-global
    Author

    Additionally, what's strange, is that with:

    var mapping: MutableMap<String, Long>? = null

    ObjectBox will correctly return a Long and not an Integer

  6. greenrobot-team commented on Jul 8, 2024

    @greenrobot-team
    Member

    Thanks! Did you by chance debug this and verified that the converter actually restores as Long? E.g. it hits this line:

    I'll try to reproduce this once I have time. Maybe this is a Kotlin thing.

  7. alghe-global commented on Jul 15, 2024

    @alghe-global
    Author

    I've only ran the test with debugger by setting a breakpoint on the assert line and verifying the type of the values returned by the mock data source against the ones returned by the database query call.

  8. greenrobot-team commented on Jul 24, 2024

    @greenrobot-team
    Member

    We tried to reproduce this and using the converter I suggested works.

    Edit: I also added flex properties to the supported types list with a strong hint to read the documentation about limitations.

    Note: labeled this issue with "more info required" so it will auto-close in a few days if there are no follow-up comments.

  9. added
    documentationImprovements or additions to documentation
    and removed
    enhancementNew feature or request
    on Jul 24, 2024
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    documentationImprovements or additions to documentation

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions