Self-Referencing Hierarchical Data

If I follow this correct, I did implement this one time.

I had classes: Account, AccountList.  One of the properties in Account class was AccountList (for sub-accounts).  Unique ID of the parent is not really a problem as long as you can get to it before updating a child.  You just pass a parent ID (or parent) to each list’s update method.  I did this in 2.1 though, and never tried in 3.5.  On new accounts GetIDValue would return a temporary ID, such as GUID. 

 

 

 

Sergey Barskiy

Senior Consultant

office: 678.405.0687 | mobile: 404.388.1899

Magenic ®

Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year | Custom Development Solutions, Technical Innovation

 

 

I am developing a chart of accounts application that uses two types of accounts:

1) Posting Accounts that allow transaction entry

2) Rollup Accounts that consolidate Posting Account data.

The table structure for the accounts uses a self-referencing PK structure; AccountKey and ParentAccountKey.

There is no predefined limit on nesting levels. Thus, a Rollup Account might contain a few Posting Accounts as children, along with a few Consolidation Accounts that also have children and perhaps Consolidation Accounts as well.

 I plan on using a Treeview in the UI to allow users to create Charts of Accounts.

This seems to be a complex issue in building using the CSLA framework since if a parent RollupAccount is new, it has no PK to populate the child accounts with. (I use a temporary key system, where new objects are populated with a negative-number temporary key until they get their real PK in the save process. Thus, children can't be assigned the ParentAccountKey until AFTER the save of the parent.)

Has anyone encountered a similar situation, and is there any elegant method to implementing this type of self-referencing structure in BOs?

That is true, but why does each account need to care of any accounts beyond ParentList.ParentAccount.  This should be the only ID you need to save.  I could be missing something though….

 

 

Sergey Barskiy

Senior Consultant

office: 678.405.0687 | mobile: 404.388.1899

Magenic ®

Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year | Custom Development Solutions, Technical Innovation

 

 

Hello, Sergey.

Thanks for your reply.

I forgot to mention that I am using CSLA 2.1.

Your solution is good, but I believe it only works for one level of nested account( sub-account).

In other words, what if one of the accounts in the AccountList itself has an AccountList? Then, to refer to it you'd have to use Account.AccountList.Account.AccountList - and to get to an Account in that "sub" AccountList you'd have to use Account.AccountList.Account.AccountList.Account. And so on for more levels. :-)

Any thoughts?