[Laszlo-dev] Parsing order of dataset attributes

[P T Withington]

Sundman has agreed to make a doc tutorial explaining that data- 
binding to XML attributes will not be order-preserving.  PhilR showed  
that simply by adding a few column declarations, you can get a  
predictable order.  There is no need to change anything in grid, so  
long as people understand this issue.   (The test case should be  
changed so that we don't get false hits for regressions.)

On 2007-01-27, at 15:02 EST, David Temkin wrote:

> Adam may be right that this isn't very useful for serious  
> development, but the maximum-effect-for-minimum effort case is part  
> of today's system.. It is useful in early exploration and demos,  
> and those aspects are quite important.
>
> If it can be retained by modifying the grid component, fine.
>
> On Jan 27, 2007, at 10:59 AM, Adam Wolff wrote:
>
>> The grid component has a feature to automatically grovel over the
>> attributes of the first element in its data to create columns if  
>> none are
>> given. This makes the trivial grid case where the column names are  
>> the
>> attribute names, and the column order is unimportant, a 1 liner in  
>> lzx. In
>> practical terms, it's probably not that useful and we could even  
>> consider
>> retracting the feature.
>>
>> This isn't a bug in the runtime. I could be considered a bug in  
>> the grid
>> component. The design center of the original components was around  
>> minimal
>> configuration for maximal effect. I think that makes for some nice  
>> demos,
>> but it's not ultimately that useful (e.g. the window sizes-to- 
>> content/
>> has-a-fixed-size switch that doubles its complexity.)
>>
>> I think we should ship this way. If it really bothers you, we  
>> could add
>> code to sort the column names in the inferColumns method of basegrid.
>> A
>>
>> On Jan 26, Jim Grandy wrote:
>>
>>> So the grid component creates attributes under the covers when it  
>>> is binding
>>> against a dataset? I'm still confused about how attributes enter  
>>> into the
>>> picture here.
>>>
>>> On Jan 26, 2007, at 3:57 PM, Philip Romanik wrote:
>>>
>>>> (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong) The attributes are in a hash  
>>>> table and
>>>> the order they are processed is browser/platform dependent. It  
>>>> appears as
>>>> though the hash table is built in reverse order in legals  
>>>> compared to OL3
>>>> (and swf iterates on a hash table in a predictable order).
>>>>
>>>> What behavior would you like to see? Is it sufficient for the  
>>>> behavior of
>>>> legals/swf to match OL3, or does it need to match legals/dhtml  
>>>> as well?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Phil
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Are we sure it is order of attributes? This is order of data nodes
>>>>> during binding.
>>>>>
>>>>> Either way,  don't think we can just close this bug -- it's a
>>>>> significant change in behavior from OL3.
>>>>>
>>>>> jim
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jan 26, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Philip Romanik wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks Henry! I'm going to document this in the jira report and
>>>>>> close it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Phil
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The grid component depends on an ordering of attributes? That's
>>>>>>> not gonna work...they don't have any defined order.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 1/26/07, Philip Romanik
>>>>>>> <<mailto:promanik at laszlosystems.com>promanik at laszlosystems.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm looking into a jira bug
>>>>>>> (<http://jira.openlaszlo.org/jira/browse/LPP-3379>http://
>>>>>>> jira.openlaszlo.org/jira/browse/LPP-3379) where the display  
>>>>>>> order
>>>>>>> is reversed between swf and dhtml. Is there anything I can do
>>>>>>> about the
>>>>>>> ordering? The behavior of dhtml matches v3.3 (it displays  
>>>>>>> data in
>>>>>>> the order
>>>>>>> it's listed). It is reversed in swf. Here's an app that
>>>>>>> demonstrates it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think this issue came up a while back. Do either of you  
>>>>>>> remember?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Phil
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <canvas debug="true">
>>>>>>>    <dataset name="weather">
>>>>>>>      <forecast>
>>>>>>>        <day label="TODAY"
>>>>>>> imageurl=" http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ifps/text/images/ 
>>>>>>> hi_shwrs70.jpg"
>>>>>>> desc="Rain Likely" temp="Hi  60&#176;F "/>
>>>>>>>        <day label="Tonight "
>>>>>>> imageurl=" http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ifps/text/images/nwind.jpg"
>>>>>>> desc="Breezy " temp="Lo  34&#176;F "/>
>>>>>>>      </forecast>
>>>>>>>    </dataset>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>    <grid bgcolor0="0xAA0000" bgcolor1="0x880000"
>>>>>>>            datapath="weather:/" contentdatapath="forecast/ 
>>>>>>> day" />
>>>>>>> </canvas>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Henry Minsky
>>>>>>> Software Architect
>>>>>>> <mailto:hminsky at laszlosystems.com>hminsky at laszlosystems.com
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>