Working with entities

This chapter covers the syntax and examples for working with entities. In Workflow language entities are first class citizens.

1 Creating entities
2 Reading entities
3 Tracking changes
4 Deleting entities

Creating entities

CREATE [entityName]

Creates and returns a new entity. The entity will have a key only after the PUT statement.

Here is an example on how to create an entity:

//Create the entity
var c = CREATE color;

//Set the properties
c.code = "#ff2390";

//Save the entity
PUT c;

CREATE CHILD [entityVariable] [relationshipName]

Creates a new child entity and adds it to the named relationship on the parent entity.

Here is an example on how to create an entity with children:

//Creates an instance of the 'invoice' entity 
var i = CREATE invoice;

//Set the properties
i.number = "1234";
 
/**
 * Create one child on the 'i' variable 
 * (which is an instance of the 'invoice' entity) for the 
 * 'invoice_invoice_item' relationship 
 */
var item = CREATE CHILD i invoice_invoice_item;

//Set the child properties
item.id_product = 100;
item.quantity = 50.4;
//Notice that we do not use PUT for the child entity
//Save the entity
PUT i;

Reading entities

GET [entityName] (key as int)

Reads an entity.

Here is an example on how to read & update an entity:

//Create the entity
var c = GET color(1);

//Read the properties
var colorCode = c.code;

//Set the properties
c.code = "#ff2390";

//Update the entity
PUT c;

CHILD [entityVariable] [relationshipName]

Here is an example on how to iterate over the children of a given relationship:

Tracking changes

ORIGINAL [entityVariable].[propertyName]

Returns the original value of the property (before it was updated).

The original value of a property can be read as follows:

The ORIGINAL keyword is especially useful when the update on data occurs in the interface:

CHILD DELETED [entityVariable] [relationshipName]

Here is an example on how to iterate over the deleted children of a given relationship:

Deleting entities

DELETE [entityVariable]

DELETE [entityName] (key as int)

DELETE CHILD [entityVariable] [relationshipName] [childEntityVariable]

Deletes an entity.

This example deletes the color entity, by first reading it:

This example deletes the color entity directly, by key:

This example deletes the color_item child entity: