Programmatically disable "mandatory business rule"

Question

Hello,
Using jdevelopper 11.1.2.3.0 and HR schema, there is my use case :
An entity object (Departments) with an attribute (DepartmentId) checked as "Mandatory". A java entity object class (DepartmentsImpl.java). In this java class, create() and doDML() methods overriden :
    protected void create(AttributeList attributeList) {
        super.create(attributeList);
        AttributeDefImpl attr = this.getEntityDef().getAttributeDefImpl("DepartmentId");
        attr.setMandatory(false);
    protected void doDML(int i, TransactionEvent transactionEvent) {
        AttributeDefImpl attr = this.getEntityDef().getAttributeDefImpl("DepartmentId");
        this.setAttribute(attr.getName(), 66);
        super.doDML(i, transactionEvent);
        attr.setMandatory(true);
    }What I want is to programmaticaly disable the "mandatory business rule" for DepartmentId attribute, because this attribute's value is programmatically set just before calling doDML().
Problem : "attr.setMandatory(false);" seems to do nothing. In validation time, the mandatory business rule is working.
What AttributeDefImpl.setMandatory() method should do? Or, what should be the right way to programmatically disable a "mandatory business rule"?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Nirav, reading your post, I realized that "mandatory" propertie is part of attribute definition. So I have try calling setMandatory() method in EntityDefImpl. I found a method loadAttribute() that I have overriden :
    protected void loadAttribute(DefElement defElement) {
        super.loadAttribute(defElement);
        AttributeDefImpl attr = this.getAttributeDefImpl("DepartmentId");
        if(attr!=null){
            System.out.println("DepartmentId found! after super");
            attr.setMandatory(false);
    }Changing the mandatory propertie here works fine. But, it is not suitable solution for me, because the entity definition is done just once : first time a user implement the entity object.
You suggest me to do this when AM is initialized : I haven't try yet, but I think I will have same problem, because when the entity definition is done once, it will never been redo later. (That is what I understand during my tests. Maybe I'm wrong?)
Timo, I can't simply remove the mandatory flag from the attribute, because in our application, user must be abble to choose if an entity pk is auto generated or not. (and that implies that pk attribute, checked as mandatory, could be programmatically changed to false).
There is something I don't understand : calling setMandatory() in EntityImpl.create() method has no effect. But, in same maner, if I call setUpdateableFlag(), thiw will have effect. Both method are changing Entity Attribute Definition. So why setMandatory() will have effect only during the first definition of Entity, and setUpdateableFlag() will work all the time?
Thanks for your help.