User Types

Hello,

Does LS4 allow developers implement new user types, like in NHibernate or Hibernate (see http://jasypt.org/hibernate3.html for an example)?  At first, I thought I can do it with Value Types, but I have not been able to get it to work. 

I have several entities with properties (of type string and blob) that should be encrypted.  In addition, I have the following requirements too:

• generate unique random strings  (like confirmation codes, salt, passwords, tokens etc); Guids don't always suffice.
• hash a value before storing it to the database and hash a lookup value when using it in a query.  
• store and read IP Addresses 
• store and read a XmlDocument, XmlElement, XDocument in a string
• store other custom CLR types (which usually has methods to convert it to and from a string, blob,  datetime, int etc)
• encrypt and store the contents of blob on disk (or Amazon S3), and the location as a string in the database. The location is never visible to the application per se, only to the data access layer responsible for reading and writing the file. 

At this stage I can override the SaveChanges method of UnitOfWork or the OnSaving method of Entity and encrypt the properties when they are saved. Another alternative would be to override the property get/set methods.  These methods causes code bloat, effects maintenance and is often error prone when you have several hundred entities. 

Any suggestions?

Werner

Have a look at the following:

http://www.mindscapehq.com/documentation/lightspeed/Working-with-Models-in-the-Visual-Designer/Enums-and-Other-User8209Defined-Types

http://www.mindscapehq.com/documentation/lightspeed/Working-with-Legacy-Databases/Mapping-Database-Types-to-Domain-Types

http://www.mindscapehq.com/blog/index.php/2010/10/04/adding-a-money-data-type-to-your-model-the-designer/

http://www.mindscapehq.com/blog/index.php/2010/08/22/ninja-data-type-mappings-in-lightspeed/

Let us know if you need more info!