Giving the ‘hasOne’ association some love

One of the really nice features of ExtJS, to my mind anyway, is the rich model architecture, and how models can be associated with each other. However, the quality can be a bit erratic – certainly, it appears that the HasOne association (which allows a one-to-one relationship) could use some loving, as it isn’t as well developed as the more commonly-used HasMany

Associations are important, even if you’re not using them as a sort of ORM system (which I’m not), because associations are necessary when converting a rich JSON document structure into models. Lots of document structures will contain nested JSON objects, many of which are in a “one-to-one” relationship with the parent. Making the hasOne relationship easier to work with is important.

One immediate problem is the verbosity – so here’s a way, using the overrides functionality of ExtJS, to make it easy to change the name of the association.

If you’re using ExtJS, I hope you find this useful; I know I will. I’ve suggested this on the Sencha forums – so with luck, maybe this will be in ExtJS 4.3. 😉

Author: Robert Watkins

My name is Robert Watkins. I am a software developer and have been for over 18 years now. I currently work for people, but my opinions here are in no way endorsed by them (which is cool; their opinions aren’t endorsed by me either). My main professional interests are in Java development, using Agile methods, with a historical focus on building web based applications. I’m also a Mac-fan and love my iPhone, which I’m currently learning how to code for. I live and work in Brisbane, Australia, but I grew up in the Northern Territory, and still find Brisbane too cold (after 16 years here). I’m married, with two children and one cat. My politics are socialist in tendency, my religious affiliation is atheist (aka “none of the above”), my attitude is condescending and my moral standing is lying down. View all posts by Robert Watkins