SimpleDB multiple attributes (increased character length of string fields)

Do you have any plans to support multi-valued attributes in SimpleDB or allow for spanning a string field accross multiple attributes so that more than 1024 characters can be stored in a single field?

Maybe a 3.0 feature?

If not, do you have any suggestions on how we could extend the Model to support using multiple attributes to increase the maximum length of a field beyond the 1024 character limit of SimpleDB?

Thanks,

-Joe

We'll be looking at multi-value attribute support post-3.0.  I can't say whether we'll support automatic "striping" of long strings.

However if the maximum length of strings is predictable then you can do this kind of striping manually.  Say you know that no string is going to be longer than 4K, i.e. strings are guaranteed to fit into 4 attributes.  You declare those 4 attributes as private fields:

private string _stringPart1;
private string _stringPart2;
// etc.

But you declare your public API as a single string:

public string CompleteString {
  get { return _stringPart1 + .... + _stringPart4; }
  set {
    Set(ref _stringPart1, value.Substring(0, 1024), "CompleteString");
    Set(ref _stringPart2, value.Substring(1024, 1024), "CompleteString");
    // etc.
  }
}

I have omitted error checking, any idea of lazy load support, etc.

Note if using the designer you can still have this, you just need to set the StringPart* properties' Generate option to FieldOnly and write the CompleteString API in the partial class.

Any updates on multi-value attribute support?