GRAILS-7761: Domain class properties that begin with an underscore "_" break dynamic finders and constructor assigned properties.

[graemerocher]

Original Reporter: xnickmx
Environment: Windows 7
Version: 1.3.6
Migrated From: http://jira.grails.org/browse/GRAILS-7761

If a domain class property begins with an underscore "_", then there are two propblems:

1. It cannot be used in a constructor e.g. Book myBook = new Book(_title: "my book") leaves the "_title" property unassigned.

2. It cannot be used in a dynamic finder e.g. Book myBook = Book.findBy_title("my book") throws an exception:

   org.codehaus.groovy.grails.exceptions.InvalidPropertyException: No property found for name [by_title] for class [class org.grails.example.domain.Book]

The good news is that there are workarounds for both of these issues.
To work around #1, don't put the property into the constructor and instead assign it on its own line e.g. myBook._title = "my book"
To work around #2, use a HQL query e.g. Book.find("from Book as b where b._title = :title", [title: "my book"])

Bug report attached with integration tests that fail and workarounds demonstrated.

[graemerocher]

burtbeckwith said:
This reminds me of the old joke where a guy goes into a doctor's office and says "Hey doc, it hurts when I do this". The doctor replies "Simple fix - don't do that".

[graemerocher]

xnickmx said:
I figured I'd log it so that if anyone else encountered it there would at least be some documentation. The constructor error was quite maddening and took a little while to figure out because it didn't fail immediately.