Changing Field Data Types

It is possible to change the SQL data type used to expose fields. The main use case envisaged is to transform decimal fields into implied decimal fields by adding a number of decimal places in the database data, but there may be other use cases. For example the same mechanism could be used to transforming A1 Y/N fields into Boolean true/false fields in the database, and more.

To transform a field data type a developer must add various special tokens to the repository field definition, and specifically into the fields long description.

Let's take an example of a field that represents the price of a product that is stored in whole cents, in the actual application it is stored as a D6 value, which by default will be represented in the database as a SQL DECIMAL(6) value. When we replicate the data to the database our goal is to transform the value into a dollars and cents value, essentially a D6.2 that will be represented in the database as a DECIMAL(6,2). Here's how to achieve that:

In the repository, add the following information to the fields long description: