Swiss Magic Data – Form Relationships

In this article we over view the [[Swiss Magic Data Editor|swiss magic]] structure used to create the web interface to define [[Custom Reporting – Creating Form Relationships|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 [[#FormRelationship_Joins|joined forms]] menu

  • links to the menu for [[#FormRelationship_Where|limiting]] this form

  • links to the menu [[#FormRelationship_ReportingFunctions|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.” <br/> 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.