Dynamic Attribute Handler - SAP Hybris

Description: Using Dynamic Attributes, we can add attributes to the hybris Models and create custom logic behind them without saving the attribute in hybris model.

Dynamic attribute has some key features: -

· The persistence type is set to dynamic, so the attribute value does not persist in the DB.

· The attributeHandler points to a bean that must handle the DynamicAttributeHandler interface.

· The write attribute is set to false, and therefore the attribute is read-only.

How Dynamic Attributes are related to the hybris Model?

1.    The AbstractItemModel type holds a reference to the DynamicAttributesProvider object, which in turn, holds a collection of DynamicAttributeHandler objects.

2.    By using the methods get and set on the DynamicAttributesProvider object, the call is delegated to the valid DynamicAttributeHandler instance.

3.    From user point of view, this process is transparent so only the interaction with the DynamicAttributeHandler instance is done by calling getter on the hybris Model

UseCase: -

·         Calculate age based on date of birth. Here Age attribute is not present in DB, but we can calculate using Dynamic attribute.

·         Giving promotion to the customer who registered before 2018.

How to create Dynamic attribute? To elaborate more, how to do that lets see the below example

Step 1: Create an attribute in one of the tables in <extensionName>-items.xml.

                <attribute type="java.lang.Integer" qualifier="customerSiteAge">

                          <description>Number of years for the customer associated with the site</description>

                          <persistence type="dynamic" attributeHandler="siteAgeForCustomer"/>

                </attribute>

Step 2:  Provide a custom attributeHandler  by assigning a bean id of the class that implements the DynamicAttributeHandler interface and holds the logic:

Ex:  <persistence type="dynamic" attributeHandler="siteAgeForCustomer"/>

Step 3:  Implementing Dynamic attribute

·         Create a new class named siteAgeForCustomer that implements DynamicAttributeHandler interface.

·         Override the getter and setter methods

                                Public String get() {

                                                //logic to get value

                                }

                                Public String set() {

                                }

 

Step 4: Register the spring bean in <extensionName>-spring.xml

<bean id="siteAgeForCustomer" class="de.hybris.servicelayer.testing.siteAgeForCustomer"   />

Step 5 : Update the system :

Update running system using the hybris Administration Console

or

using the following ant command in the command line:

ant  updatesystem

Sources are compiled and in the Model class  proper getter and setter are generated depending upon the modifiers.

Step 6 : Access in UI/Controller

·         Now whenever we access customer Model, we can also access the customerSiteAge attribute from customer model,

·         we will get the result of our custom logic in that attribute.

·         We can display it in any UI page by setting its value in appropriate controller and model attribute.

Note: Dynamic attribute cannot be unique.

if we define it unique in <extensionName>-items.xml then during build it will give build error

Advantages of Dynamic attribute:

·         Data will not be saved in DB as its dynamic

·         The custom logic is written once and used all the time wherever that attribute is required.

When we should go for Dynamic attribute?

·         We should choose dynamic attribute whenever we want to get some derived data based on existing values.

·         So instead of saving one more column, we can make it as dynamic and compute its value based on the current values.

Thanks

Vikash Kumar Karnani.