PATH Documentation > WebObjects 4.5 > EOAdaptor Reference

EOPropertyListEncoding

Implemented by: EOAttribute EOEntity EORelationship EOStoredProcedure

Package: com.apple.yellow.eoaccess

Interface Description

The EOPropertyListEncoding interface declares methods that read and write objects to property lists-a dictionary containing only property list data types (that is, NSDictionary objects, Strings, NSArray objects, and NSData objects).

Classes that implement this interface must also provide a constructor that creates objects from a property list and an owner:

public ClassName(NSDictionary propertyList, Object owner)

Objects created with a constructor of this type are initialized from the provided property list. The owner argument is optional and should be used only by objects requiring a reference to their owner. The newly created object isn't considered fully functional until it receives an awakeWithPropertyList message, which finishes initializing the object. The awakeWithPropertyList invocation should be deferred until after all of the objects identified in the property list have been created.

The method encodeIntoPropertyList is responsible for encoding the receiver into a property list for later restoration.

This interface is used to read and write modeling objects (EOModel, EOEntity, EOAttribute, and so on) to a model file.

Instance Methods

awakeWithPropertyList

public abstract void awakeWithPropertyList(NSDictionary propertyList)

Finishes initializing the receiver from propertyList, which must have been created with a constructor of the form:

public ClassName(NSDictionary propertyList, Object owner)

awakeWithPropertyList is responsible for restoring references to other objects. Consequently, it should not be invoked until all other objects that the receiver might reference have been created from propertyList.

encodeIntoPropertyList

public abstract void encodeIntoPropertyList(NSMutableDictionary propertyList)

Encodes the receiver as a property list.