What are the best practices in providing lookup values?

A couple things.

First, I tend to cache NVL objects in static fields (for a smart client), so I really only get them once in most cases. Obviously there are exceptions for volatile data, but usually this is a big help.

Second, if I know that I am going to need a set of NVL objects for a given user scenario, I’ll often create a separate ReadOnlyBase subclass that has the sole responsibility of retrieving the NVL objects. Something like this:

[Serializable]

public class LookupListRetriever : ReadOnlyBase<LookupListRetreiver>

{

  public Categories Categories { get; private set; }

  public States States { get; private set; }

…

  public static LookupListRetriever GetData()

  {

    var obj = DataPortal.Fetch<LookupListRetriever>();

    Categories.SetCache(this.Categories);

    States.SetCache(this.States);

…

  }

  private void DataPortal_Fetch()

  {

    this.Categories = Categories.GetList();

    this.States = States.GetList();

…

  }

}

This avoids the round-trips. Notice that the factory forces a load of the static caches for each NVL type. You may have different techniques for caching – just remember that the DataPortal_Fetch() method runs on the server, so something needs to update the client-side cache once the DataPortal.Fetch() call is complete.

Rocky

A couple things.

First, I tend to cache NVL objects in static fields (for a smart client), so I really only get them once in most cases. Obviously there are exceptions for volatile data, but usually this is a big help.

Second, if I know that I am going to need a set of NVL objects for a given user scenario, I’ll often create a separate ReadOnlyBase subclass that has the sole responsibility of retrieving the NVL objects. Something like this:

[Serializable]

public class LookupListRetriever : ReadOnlyBase<LookupListRetreiver>

{

  public Categories Categories { get; private set; }

  public States States { get; private set; }

…

  public static LookupListRetriever GetData()

  {

    var obj = DataPortal.Fetch<LookupListRetriever>();

    Categories.SetCache(this.Categories);

    States.SetCache(this.States);

…

  }

  private void DataPortal_Fetch()

  {

    this.Categories = Categories.GetList();

    this.States = States.GetList();

…

  }

}

This avoids the round-trips. Notice that the factory forces a load of the static caches for each NVL type. You may have different techniques for caching – just remember that the DataPortal_Fetch() method runs on the server, so something needs to update the client-side cache once the DataPortal.Fetch() call is complete.

Rocky

You’ll need to implement static SetCache() methods on your NVL classes.

Rocky

public class MyList : NameValueListBase<…>

{

  private static MyList _cache;

  public static void SetCache(MyList obj)

  {

    _cache = obj;

  }

}

How do i accomplish that? Any light/easy example or link to do 'SetCache'?

Thanks.