Creating localized attribute by a custom type

[inautz]

Hello everyone! I am having a problem to create a localized attribute by region via Impex. Short description: robots has a cable length and unit, which is different for different regions.

<maptypes>
        <maptype code="localized:Cable" argumenttype="RegionCable" returntype="Cable" autocreate="true" generate="false"/>
    </maptypes>

    <itemtypes>
        <itemtype code="RegionCable" extends="GenericItem"
                  jaloclass="com.blablabla.RegionCable">
            <deployment table="RegionCable" typecode="10103"/>
            <attributes>
                <attribute qualifier="code" type="java.lang.String">
                    <modifiers read="true" write="true" search="true"/>
                </attribute>
            </attributes>
            <!-- Maybe some translation will come here -->
        </itemtype>

        <itemtype code="Cable" extends="GenericItem"
                  jaloclass="com.blablabla.Cable">
            <deployment table="Cable" typecode="10102"/>
            <attributes>
                <attribute qualifier="length" type="java.lang.Integer">
                    <modifiers read="true" write="true"/>
                    <persistence type="property"/>
                </attribute>
                <attribute qualifier="lengthUnit" type="Unit">
                    <modifiers read="true" write="true"/>
                    <persistence type="property"/>
                </attribute>
            </attributes>
        </itemtype>

        <itemtype code="Robot" extends="Product"
                  jaloclass="com.blablabla.Robot">
            <attributes>
                ...
                <attribute qualifier="cable" type="localized:Cable">
                    <persistence type="property"/>
                </attribute>
            </attributes>
        </itemtype>

Creating that connection in Backoffice is easy-peasy. The challenge starts, when trying to update the robot via impex 

INSERT_UPDATE RegionCable; code[unique=true]
                         ; EU  ;

INSERT_UPDATE Cable; &cabId; length[unique=true]; lengthUnit(code)[unique=true]
                   ; 2m    ; 2                  ; m



UPDATE Robot; code[unique=true]; cable[code=EU]; $catalogVersion
            ; ROBOT   ; 2m

The exception thrown in this case is the following:

 Exception ocurred, will ignore: de.hybris.platform.impex.jalo.ImpExException: begin 0, end -1, length 2

Thanks in advance for your suggestions! 

[Slava]

As mansurarisoy pointed out, localized types are really Map types under the hood. So that means your robot will have a different cable in different parts of the world. For example the cable attribute may have values like these:

en_BR	cable1
en_US	cable2
de	cable3
fr	cable3
fr_CA	cable2
es	cable3

where the left column contains ISO codes for the languages (LanguageModel existing in the platform); and the right column contains PKs of the corresponding Cable items. This makes sense, if the cable is some standard cable acceptable in that part of the world. If it's just about the unit of measurement, this design is an overhead and no localization is needed at all, in my opinion.

Now, about the impex. This is impex documentation to use in addition to the links provided mansurarisoy.

I found a few problems with it:

1. The usage of the Document ID (see Document ID section in the link above), i.e. &cabId. It's not needed because it's not referenced anywhere else. Not really a problem - just a redundant value.
2. The localized attribute does not specify the locale for the value (see Localizing section in the link above).
3. Incorrect reference of the cable. The Cable type does not have code attribute (actually no unique attributes at all to identify the cable). So, to reference a cable we need to reference all its attributes. See Item Reference Attributes in the link above.
4. catalogVersion macro is undefined and the value is not provided. I'm going to remove it, but if it's a required attribute of the Robot, then it has to be provided.

I think, the corrected impex should be like this: 

INSERT_UPDATE RegionCable; code[unique=true]
                         ; EU  ;

INSERT_UPDATE Cable; length[unique=true]; lengthUnit(code)[unique=true]
                   ; 2                  ; m

UPDATE Robot; code[unique=true]; cable(length, lengthUnit(code))[lang=en]
            ; ROBOT            ; 2:m

[mansurarisoy]

What you've created is not a "localized" type. Localized types are maptypes which use Language as key (argument) type. Just adding "localized:" prefix to a maptype does not make it a localized type. A type can be a localized type even if it does not have "localized:" prefix. See for the following maptypes defined in solrfacetsearch-items.xml

SolrSynonymLangMapping
SolrKeywordRedirectLangMapping
SolrStopWordLangMapping

See following references for more information about localized attributes

• Localized Attributes (Internationalization and Localization) 
• Localized Attributes (Languages and Localization) 

You can see Language type control of key type of the map in various code under platform. One example is checkLocalizedChange of AttributeDescriptor in package de.hybris.platform.jalo.type

protected void checkLocalizedChange(boolean newLoc) throws JaloInvalidParameterException {
	boolean typeProvidesLocalization = false;
	Type valueType = this.getRealAttributeType();
	if (valueType instanceof MapType) {
		Type argType = ((MapType)valueType).getArgumentType();
		if (argType instanceof ComposedType && Language.class.isAssignableFrom(((ComposedType)argType).getJaloClass())) {
			typeProvidesLocalization = true;
		}
	}

	if (newLoc && !typeProvidesLocalization) {
		throw new JaloInvalidParameterException("cannot set attribute " + this + " localized since value type doesnt allow", 0);
	}
}

Unfortunately, there seems to be a no way to define which attribute you will use to select the key or value in a map. Since most of the argument or return types are atomic types (e.g. String, Integer) they can be easily imported via ImpEx like the following

INSERT_UPDATE SolrIndexedProperty; name[unique = true];valueProviderParameters[map-delimiter = |] 
;indexedPropertyName;key1->value1|key2->value2|key3->value3|key4->value4

When an itemtype is used, you can use PK of the item when importing, but it cannot be done in single-run since PK value could not be available before the item is created. So I think your best choice is to use a Translator. You can find several Translators to investigate how you can write a new one. Also read more from here in Translator documentation