.. _FetchAttrs:

Loaded attributes and default sorting management

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* The class attribute `fetch_attrs` allows to define in an entity class a list

  of names of attributes or relations that should be automatically loaded when

  entities of this type are fetched from the database. In the case of relations,

  we are limited to *subject of cardinality `?` or `1`* relations.

* The class method `fetch_order(attr, var)` expects an attribute (or relation)

  name as a parameter and a variable name, and it should return a string

  sort the list of entities of such type according to this attribute, or

  `None` if we do not want to sort on the attribute given in the parameter.

  By default, the entities are sorted according to their creation date.

* The class method `fetch_unrelated_order(attr, var)` is similar to

  the method `fetch_order` except that it is essentially used to

  control the sorting of drop-down lists enabling relations creation

  in the editing view of an entity. The default implementation uses

  the modification date. Here's how to adapt it for one entity (sort

  on the name attribute): ::

   class MyEntity(AnyEntity):

       fetch_attrs = ('modification_date', 'name')

       @classmethod

       def fetch_unrelated_order(cls, attr, var):

           if attr == 'name':

              return '%s ASC' % var

           return None

The function `fetch_config(fetchattrs, mainattr=None)` simplifies the

definition of the attributes to load and the sorting by returning a

list of attributes to pre-load (considering automatically the

attributes of `AnyEntity`) and a sorting function based on the main

attribute (the second parameter if specified, otherwise the first

attribute from the list `fetchattrs`). This function is defined in

`cubicweb.entities`.

For example: ::

  class Transition(AnyEntity):

    """..."""

    id = 'Transition'

    fetch_attrs, fetch_order = fetch_config(['name'])

Indicates that for the entity type "Transition", you have to pre-load

the attribute `name` and sort by default on this attribute.