All of my business objects extend a basebusinessObject with format(), field() and processField() methods. They all call a singleton injected into the base business object called dataTypeFacade, and that has all of the data type cfc’s (money, date, wysiwyg, URL, etc) loaded into it as singletons. It gets passed the property name, the property value (or the event object for processing forms), the data type, and any format override data (I want to use a fileupload data type, but want to limit it to pdf’s and upload them into /special/folder) and it handles the processing.

Sample (simplistic) data type cfc:

// ***************** CONSTRUCTOR *****************
function init() {
super.init();
addDefault( “symbol” , “$” );
return THIS;
}

// ***************** PUBLIC METHODS *****************

function field( PropertyName , PropertyValue , DataTypeProperties ) {
var Properties = ProcessDataTypeProperties( arguments.DataTypeProperties );
return “#Properties.symbol# “;
}

function format( PropertyName , PropertyValue , DataTypeProperties ) {
var Properties = ProcessDataTypeProperties( arguments.DataTypeProperties );
return “#Properties.symbol# #Numberformat( arguments.PropertyValue , ‘9.99′ )#”;
}

function processField( PropertyName , Event , DataTypeProperties ) {
var Properties = ProcessDataTypeProperties( arguments.DataTypeProperties );
var FieldValue = trim( arguments.Event.get( PropertyName ) );
if ( not len( FieldValue ) ) { FieldValue = 0; };
return FieldValue;
}

Can you expand on your Custom Data Type convention? I cannot seem to wrap my head around how you are implementing these? It sounds like you would have, for instance, a Display() method and the arguments would be of a type=”com.datatypes.emailAddress” etc. and then the dt cfc would have formatting options??? Am I close? Could you share a snippet as to how you do that w/o giving away anything that you deem proprietary?

Thanks,
Andy

But the DSL part is really the main part of the presentation. Base classes, optional class files, XML DSLs and custom data types are the areas that provide the most value. The IBO is really for people who’re not ready for that yet but want to start using objects more consistently in their applications.