Foreign key fields not getting populated in datacontrol palette for EJB app

Question

Hi,
I am quite new to ADF and EJB.I developed a jdeveloper application with JSF and EJB tiers.(I am using jdeveloper 10.1.3.5)
For database the default HR database is used.I created the entities for the EMPLOYEES and DEPARTMENTS table.
I also created a session bean and a data control for the session bean.
I am having a JSF page that receives all the details of a new Employee and insert into database (i.e persistEntity)
But the Employees constructor from the Data control palette is not populating the MANAGERID and DEPARTMENTID fields which are
the foreign key constraints for the EMPLOYEES table and hence while trying to persist the entity
with the auto populated fields an error message is thrown.
If I used ADF BC instead of EJB then i could populate all the fields including MANAGERID and DEPARTMENTID.
Is it possible to have two text fields for Manager and Department in the jsf to insert the Employee details with EJB as the Model?.
If possible how do I bind the values of these fields to the Employees entity object in EJB.
Kindly need your insights on this.
Thanks,
Guna.

Answer 1

Hi,
How are you using MANAGER_ID and DEPARTMENT_ID fields, are they exposed as Long (or some other numeric type), or did you map them on the entity, something like this
@ManyToOne
private Employee manager; // this by default uses the column named MANAGER_ID
@ManyToOne
private Department department; // this by default uses the column named DEPARTMENT_ID
.... If you mapped them (which is the right way), when you create an employee you should set these attributes before persisting the entity, by using employee.setManager(manager) and employee.setDepartment(department). Then, the foreign keys get populated automatically by your persistence provider (Toplink).
If you are using data controls, it is a little different process to set the department and manager, but you should take a look at this tutorial http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe11jdev/ps1/ejb/ejb.html , it will hopefully answer a lot of your questions.
Pedja