Strolch Overview > Documentation > Model

Model

Before we dive into the entire model, let’s show an example and how it would be modelled in Strolch and use in Strolch:

Strolch model example

The model has four entities, which will be modelled using 3 Resources and 1 Order object. The objects have numerous fields and the following relationships:

Bidirectional between Article <-> Product
Unidirectional from Order -> Article
Unidirectional from Order -> Customer

A possible model would look as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<StrolchModel xmlns="https://strolch.li/xsd/StrolchModel-1.6.xsd">

    <Resource Id="Product" Name="Product Template" Type="Template">
        <ParameterBag Id="parameters" Name="Parameters" Type="Parameters">
            <Parameter Id="description" Name="Description" Type="String" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="color" Name="Color" Type="String" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="form" Name="Form" Type="String" Value=""/>
        </ParameterBag>
        <ParameterBag Id="relations" Name="Relations" Type="Relations">
            <Parameter Id="articles" Name="Articles" Type="StringList" Interpretation="Resource-Ref" Uom="Article" Value=""/>
        </ParameterBag>
    </Resource>

    <Resource Id="Article" Name="Article Template" Type="Template">
        <ParameterBag Id="parameters" Name="Parameters" Type="Parameters">
            <Parameter Id="description" Name="Description" Type="String" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="barcode" Name="Barcode" Type="String" Value=""/>
        </ParameterBag>
        <ParameterBag Id="relations" Name="Relations" Type="Relations">
            <Parameter Id="product" Name="Product" Type="String" Interpretation="Resource-Ref" Uom="Product" Value=""/>
        </ParameterBag>
    </Resource>

    <Resource Id="Customer" Name="Customer Template" Type="Template">
        <ParameterBag Id="address" Name="Address" Type="Address">
            <Parameter Id="street" Name="Street" Type="String" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="zip" Name="Zip" Type="String" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="city" Name="City" Type="String" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="country" Name="Country" Type="String" Value=""/>
        </ParameterBag>
    </Resource>

    <Order Id="Order" Name="Order" Type="Template">
        <ParameterBag Id="quantities" Name="Quantities per Article Id" Type="Quantities">
            <Parameter Id="quantity" Name="Quantity" Type="Float" Value="0"/>
        </ParameterBag>
        <ParameterBag Id="relations" Name="Relations" Type="Relations">
            <Parameter Id="articles" Name="Articles" Type="StringList" Interpretation="Resource-Ref" Uom="Article" Value=""/>
            <Parameter Id="customer" Name="Customer" Type="String" Interpretation="Resource-Ref" Uom="Customer" Value=""/>
        </ParameterBag>
    </Order>

</StrolchModel>

Let’s go through this model:

In the above model we see that the id and name fields are always on the element, and thus aren’t added as parameters. Further best practice is to use a parameters ParameterBag, with one or more parameters, modelling the fields. There is API support to not have to always type the parameters bag id.
Note that in this example the Type of all the elements is Template. Strolch has API support to create a clone of these elements, so that they have a unique id, and the proper type for persistence.
The Product element has three parameters: description, color and form. In this case they are all of type String. Further the relations ParameterBag defines the relationships, i.e. the product knows its articles. Note how the relation is first defined in a relations ParameterBag and that the Parameter has Interpretation="Resource-Ref" Uom="Product" attributes. Strolch has API support for this, making it trivial to retrieve a dependency.
The Article element has two parameters description and barcode. Further it has a reference to its Product.
The Order element doesn’t model the date and state fields as parameters, as these are inherently part of an Order element. The Order does define two references to customer and articles. A special case is the quantities ParameterBag. This bag of parameters is used to store the per article quantity for this order. With ParameterBags, you can eliminate the use of simple aggregate classes, as is commonly used in object-oriented programming.
The Customer element models an address ParameterBag to store the address of a customer. Using a separate bag allows for further more direct fields to stored on the default parameters bag.

Now that we have a basic understanding of te model, it is of far more interest in how to create and interact with these elements at runtime. The following listing will perform simple operations:

public class Example {
  public static void main(String[] args) {

    // keep IDs for later use
    String dafalganId;
    String dafalgan1Id;
    String dafalgan2Id;
    String customerId;
    String orderId;

    // first transaction to create the data
    try (StrolchTransaction tx = runtimeMock.openUserTx(certificate, false)) {

      /*
       * create a new product
       */
      Resource dafalgan = tx.getResourceTemplate("Product", true);
      dafalgan.setName("Dafalgan 100mg");
      dafalgan.setString("description", "Dafalgan is for pain.");
      dafalgan.setString("color", "Yellow");
      dafalgan.setString("form", "flat");

      /*
       * create articles
       */
      Resource dafalgan1 = tx.getResourceTemplate("Article", true);
      dafalgan1.setName("Dafalgan 100mg 10 pce");
      dafalgan1.setString("description", "This is pack with 10 pieces.");
      dafalgan1.setString("barcode", "654654");

      Resource dafalgan2 = tx.getResourceTemplate("Article", true);
      dafalgan2.setName("Dafalgan 100mg 20 pce");
      dafalgan2.setString("description", "This is pack with 20 pieces.");
      dafalgan2.setString("barcode", "654655");

      /*
       * add reference to product
       */
      dafalgan1.setRelation("product", dafalgan);
      dafalgan2.setRelation("product", dafalgan);

      dafalgan.addRelation("articles", dafalgan1);
      dafalgan.addRelation("articles", dafalgan2);

      /*
       * create a new customer
       */
      Resource customer1 = tx.getResourceTemplate("Customer", true);
      customer1.setName("John Doe");

      // set address
      ParameterBag addressBag = customer1.getParameterBag("address", true);
      addressBag.setString("street", "Main Str. 1");
      addressBag.setString("zip", "1234");
      addressBag.setString("city", "Hometown");
      addressBag.setString("country", "Switzerland");

      /*
       * create a new order
       */
      Order order = tx.getOrderTemplate("Order", true);
      order.setName("Order for " + customer1.getName());
      order.setDate(LocalDate.of(2021, 2, 1));
      order.setState(State.PLANNED);

      // store reference to customer
      order.setRelation("customer", customer1);

      StringListParameter orderArticlesP = order.getRelationsParam("articles", true);
      ParameterBag quantitiesBag = order.getParameterBag("quantities", true);
      FloatParameter quantityT = quantitiesBag.removeParameter("quantity");

      // order quantity of 20 for Dafalgan 1
      quantitiesBag.setDouble(dafalgan1.getId(), 20);
      order.addRelation("articles", dafalgan1);

      // set order quantity of 10 for Dafalgan 2
      quantitiesBag.setDouble(dafalgan2.getId(), 20);
      order.addRelation("articles", dafalgan2);

      // keep IDs for later use
      dafalganId = dafalgan.getId();
      dafalgan1Id = dafalgan1.getId();
      dafalgan2Id = dafalgan2.getId();
      customerId = customer1.getId();
      orderId = order.getId();

      /*
       * persist
       */
      tx.add(dafalgan);
      tx.add(dafalgan1);
      tx.add(dafalgan2);
      tx.add(customer1);
      tx.add(order);

      // commit
      tx.commitOnClose();
    }
  }
}

class Scratch {
  public static void main(String[] args) {

    // keep IDs for later use
    String dafalganId;
    String dafalgan1Id;
    String dafalgan2Id;
    String customerId;
    String orderId;
    
    //
    // .. snip ...
    // 

    // second transaction to query the data
    try (StrolchTransaction tx = runtimeMock.openUserTx(certificate, true)) {

      // get order
      Order order = tx.getOrderBy("Order", orderId, true);
      assertEquals("Order for John Doe", order.getName());

      // get customer
      Resource customer = tx.getResourceByRelation(order, "customer", true);
      assertEquals("John Doe", customer.getName());

      // get articles
      List<Resource> articles = tx.getResourcesByRelation(order, "articles", true);
      assertEquals(2, articles.size());

      // get products by stream
      List<Resource> products = articles.stream().map(a -> tx.getResourceByRelation(a, "product", true))
              .distinct().collect(Collectors.toList());
      assertEquals(1, products.size());

      // search for all orders in state PLANNED and with customer
      List<Order> orders = new OrderSearch().types("Order").stateIsIn(State.PLANNED)
              .where(ExpressionsSupport.relationParam("customer").isEqualTo(customerId)).search(tx).toList();
      assertEquals(1, orders.size());
    }
  }
}

Note: Checkout example-model.xml and SimpleModelTest.java for these examples.

There is an XML Schema which defines the model in XML: StrolchModel-1.6.xsd

Here is an example of all the possible elements in Strolch:

<StrolchModel xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="https://strolch.li/xsd/StrolchModel-1.6.xsd"
xsi:schemaLocation="https://strolch.li/xsd/StrolchModel-1.6.xsd StrolchModel-1.6.xsd">

  <IncludeFile file="Include1.xml"/>

  <Order Id="@test1" Name="Test Order" Type="Order">
    <Version Version="0" CreatedBy="test" Created="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" UpdatedBy="test" Updated="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" Deleted="false"/>
    <ParameterBag Id="@bag01" Name="Test Bag" Type="TestBag">
      <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
    </ParameterBag>
    <ParameterBag Id="@bag01" Name="Test Bag" Type="TestBag">
      <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
    </ParameterBag>
    <Policies>
      <Policy Type="PlanningPolicy" Value="key:SimplePlanning"/>
      <Policy Type="ConfirmationPolicy" Value="key:NoConfirmation"/>
    </Policies>
  </Order>

  <Resource Id="MyTestResource" Name="Test Name" Type="TestType">
    <Version Version="0" CreatedBy="test" Created="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" UpdatedBy="test" Updated="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" Deleted="false"/>
    <ParameterBag Id="@bag01" Name="Test Bag 01" Type="TestBag">
      <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
    </ParameterBag>
    <ParameterBag Id="@bag02" Name="Test Bag 02" Type="TestBag">
      <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
    </ParameterBag>
    <TimedState Id="@booleanState" Name="Boolean State" Type="Boolean">
      <Value Time="1970-01-01T00:02:00.000+01:00" Value="false"/>
    </TimedState>
    <Policies>
      <Policy Type="PlanningPolicy" Value="key:SimplePlanning"/>
      <Policy Type="ConfirmationPolicy" Value="key:NoConfirmation"/>
    </Policies>
  </Resource>

  <Activity Id="activity_1" Name="Activity" Type="parentType" TimeOrdering="Series">
    <Version Version="0" CreatedBy="test" Created="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" UpdatedBy="test" Updated="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" Deleted="false"/>
    <ParameterBag Id="@bag01" Name="Test Bag" Type="TestBag">
      <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
    </ParameterBag>
    <Policies>
      <Policy Type="PlanningPolicy" Value="key:SimplePlanning"/>
      <Policy Type="ConfirmationPolicy" Value="key:NoConfirmation"/>
    </Policies>
    <Action Id="action_1" Name="Action 1" ResourceId="dummyId" ResourceType="dummyType" State="Created" Type="Use">
      <ParameterBag Id="@bag01" Name="Test Bag" Type="TestBag">
        <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
      </ParameterBag>
      <Policies>
        <Policy Type="PlanningPolicy" Value="key:SimplePlanning"/>
        <Policy Type="ConfirmationPolicy" Value="key:NoConfirmation"/>
      </Policies>
      <ValueChange StateId="dummyId" Time="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" Value="5" Type="Integer"/>
      <ValueChange StateId="dummyId" Time="2012-11-30T18:12:06.628+01:00" Value="6" Type="Integer"/>
    </Action>
    <Activity Id="child_activity" Name="Child Activity" Type="childType" TimeOrdering="Series">
      <ParameterBag Id="@bag01" Name="Test Bag" Type="TestBag">
        <Parameter Id="@param1" Name="Boolean Param" Type="Boolean" Value="true"/>
      </ParameterBag>
      <Policies>
        <Policy Type="PlanningPolicy" Value="key:SimplePlanning"/>
        <Policy Type="ConfirmationPolicy" Value="key:NoConfirmation"/>
      </Policies>
      <Action Id="action_2" Name="Action 2" ResourceId="dummyId" ResourceType="dummyType" State="Planned"
          Type="Use">
        <ValueChange StateId="dummyId" Time="2012-11-30T18:12:05.628+01:00" Value="5" Type="Integer"/>
        <ValueChange StateId="dummyId" Time="2012-11-30T18:12:06.628+01:00" Value="6" Type="Integer"/>
      </Action>
      <Action Id="action_3" Name="Action 3" ResourceId="dummyId" ResourceType="dummyType" State="Created"
          Type="Use"/>
    </Activity>
  </Activity>

</StrolchModel>