How to manage Constraints for Non-Composition Associations?

Question

Hi
Assuming the following Situation:
Company - Entity with Primary Key Attribute CompId
Person - Entity which is associated to Company as a detail via a NON-composition association ("employedAssoc") using Attribute CompId.
PERS_COMP_FK - a database foreign key between the tables of Company (master) and Person (detail) making sure Person is not employed at a non-existing company.
Now I want to implement a code which sets the FK-Attribute CompId in Person to <null> (unemployed) if Company is deleted (bankrupt). I tried the following code, implemented in Company:   public void remove()
    // set Attribute CompId in Person to null
    RowIterator iter = getPersons();
    while (iter.hasNext())
      PersonImpl person = (PersonImpl) iter.next();
      person.setCompId(null);
    // remove Company
    super.remove();
  }Unfortunately this code throws oracle.jbo.DMLConstraintException: "Constraint PERS_COMP_FK violated during post operation: "DELETE FROM Company WHERE COMP_ID = :1" "What's going wrong here?
Any hints are welcome
Thanks
Frank Brandstetter

Answer 1

Well, I don't think it is a bug.
When you set the foreign key to null, you are already INSIDE the postChanges process. I don't really see what the framework should do. Stop the post on one entity and take another one? No idea...
If you perform a custom action BEFORE triggering commit/post where you set the foreign keys to null, this might work properly (if compositions are present). Though...
HTH,
Adrian