Hello,

i want define longtext and not varchar(75)(String) in the service.xml for the servicebuilder. O.k. it seems it is not possible???

In your portlets, for Example Shopping - ShoppingItemField field description and values_, you make the same what i want, BUT this is not possible with the service.xml and servicebuilder .
Now, i can only define String and will get varchar(75).

How do you do it or what is the right way?

Axel

> i want define longtext and not varchar(75)(String) in the service.xml
> for the servicebuilder. O.k. it seems it is not possible???
>


- Locate the file web-impl/classes/META-INF/ext-model-hints.xml

- Locate the specific entity and field..

- Add the model hints to make the field larger/smaller, etc...

- Re-run servicebuilder

e.g.



look in portal-impl.jar!/META-INF/portal-model-hints.xml for many
examples..

And yes, this file influences the tables/columns generated. So make sure
to rebuild after adjustment.

Hello Ray,

haaa.. , thanks. This is exactly what i want.
O.k. i think i must study the creationprocess/servicebuilder a little bit more.

Thanks Axel

Hello,
This process seems to be a little messy. You have to edit a generated (modified) file in order to get your hints in the service. This is very annoying if you want to do a clean rebuild of all or some of the services. You cannot simply delete the ext-model-hints.xml file, but instead have to go thru and edit by hand, removing only the un-altered portions.
The hope may be that you will never have to do this, but the ideal is usually not the reality. If you remove or rename some fields in a service model which already have modified hints in the XML file, then you have to remove/rename those fields by hand.
This also means that this file must be checked into source control, which is never the desired paradigm for generated files.

There are several of these such "paradigm breaks" in Liferay. Another is the creation of tables in the generated SQL scripts to handle the "mapping-table" attribute of columns in service.xml.
I have already dealt with this one locally by changing ServiceBuilder (a very simple modification), but I'd hope to see that change implemented in future Liferay releases.

As for the hints, I will once again modify ServiceBuilder to generate these hints from the service.xml, but it will also require changes to the service.xml dtd which I'm not very enthusiastic about.

Are these improvements something that can be anticipated in future releases?

These hints are also used by the display logic which renders a field
using our display beans, like when we use



Hints need to be stored somewhere in a config file,
*-model-hints.xml is that file. So, we use this single file for
affecting both the generated SQL and the rendering logic.

But isn't this file also generated by the ServiceBuilder process? Shouldn't the hints be defined with the rest of the service in the actual service.xml files?

> But isn't this file also generated by the ServiceBuilder
> process? Shouldn't the hints be defined with the rest of the service
> in the actual service.xml files?


Yes, but your changes persist.

I understand now why the same tag generates TEXTAREA or INPUT etc... Great, thanks!

<liferay-ui:input-field model="<%= JournalArticle.class %>" bean="<%= article %>" field="description" />

I had one question. this change was reflecting when i added hints in /classes/META-INF/ext-model-hints.xml i.e. in classes folder. But when i did change in src, it got replaced with the original one. since we only make changes in src, how come for only this file we make change in classes. please clarify. thanks in advance.

whenever you modify the model-hints files, make sure to run the compile target before your service rebuild.

i.e. ant compile build-services

For me VARCHAR(length), STRING and TEXT types are possible with ext-model-hints.xml.
Is it possible to modify a database field with type LONGTEXT?
If yes, then how can I modify the ext-model-hints.xml for this change?
Thanks, Johns