PATH Documentation > WebObjects 4.5 > EOAccess Reference

EOPropertyListEncoding

Adopted by: EOAttribute EOEntity EORelationship EOStoredProcedure

Declared in: EOAccess/EOModelGroup.h

Protocol Description

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

Classes that implement this protocol must also initialize their instances with initWithPropertyList:owner:. Objects initialized with initWithPropertyList:owner: 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 protocol is used to read and write modeling objects (EOModel, EOEntity, EOAttribute, and so on) to a model file.

Instance Methods

awakeWithPropertyList

- (void)awakeWithPropertyList:(NSDictionary *)propertyList

Finishes initializing the receiver from propertyList, which must have been initialized with initWithPropertyList: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 initialized from propertyList.

encodeIntoPropertyList:

- (void)encodeIntoPropertyList:(NSMutableDictionary *)propertyList

Encodes the receiver as a property list.

initWithPropertyList:owner:

- initWithPropertyList:(NSDictionary *)propertyList owner:(id)owner

Intializes a newly-allocated object from a property list. owner is optional, and should be used by objects requiring a back pointer to their owner. This method must be followed by a call to awakeWithPropertyList in order to create a fully-functional object. The call to awakeWithPropertyList should be deferred until after all other objects have been sent init messages.