Can you data-bind a composite id in Grails such that it (or parts of it) becomes updateable?

Question

I am trying to read through the dataBind documentation, but it's not all that clear:

http://grails.org/doc/2.1.0/ref/Controllers/bindData.html

I have a composite id composed of 4 columns, and I need to update one of those. It refuses to .save() and doesn't even throw an error. Is there some configuration that will allow me to change these values and save the model?

If I delete it and create a new record, it will bump the rowid, which I was using on the browser side with datatables/jeditable, and it's not really an option. However, even if I include all the parameters with an empty list:

def a = WaiverExemption.find("from WaiverExemption as e where e.exemptionRowId = ?", [params.rowid])
a.properties = params
bindData(a, params, [include: []])
a.save(flush: true, failOnError: true)

This does not seem to work. I've also tried naming the columns/properties explicitly both by themselves and also with "id".

Answer 1

I was confused on what bindData() actually does. Still confused on that.

If you have a composite id in Grails and wish to change one or more of the column values, save() will never ever execute as suggested in the question. Instead, you'll want to use .executeUpdate(). You can pass in HQL that updates (though most of the examples on the web are for delete) the table in question, with syntax that is nearly identical to proper SQL. Something along the lines of "update domain d set d.propertyName = ?" should work.

I do not know if this is a wise thing to do, or if it violates some philosophical rule of how a Grails app should work, but it will actually do the update. I advise caution and plenty of testing. This crap's all voodoo to me.