When i wrote the functions to import contact, i already created a couple
of “temporary” functions to validate whether the input given from the
Excel files was correct according to the various domains used in the
relations, so i can know whether i can import that data.
I realized that i could do exactly the same when validating forms: check
that the value conforms to the domain, in the exact same way, so i can
make sure that the value will be accepted without duplicating the logic,
at the expense of a call to the database.
In an ideal world, i would use pg_input_is_valid, but this function is
only available in PostgreSQL 16 and Debian 12 uses PostgreSQL 15.
These functions are in the public schema because initially i wanted to
use them to also validate email, which is needed in the login form, but
then i recanted and kept the same email validation in Go, because
something felt off about using the database for that particular form,
but i do not know why.
This allows to import an Excel file exported from Holded, because it is
our own user case. When we have more customers, we will give out an
Excel template file to fill out.
Why XLSX files instead of CSV, for instance? First, because this is the
output from Holded, but even then we would have more trouble with CSV
than with XLSX because of Microsoft: they royally fucked up
interoperability when decided that CSV files, the files that only other
applications or programmers see, should be “localized”, and use a comma
or a **semicolon** to separate a **comma** separated file depending on
the locale’s decimal separator.
This is ridiculous because it means that CSV files created with an Excel
in USA uses comma while the same Excel but with a French locale expects
the fields to be separated by semicolon. And for no good reason,
either.
Since they fucked up so bad, decided to add a non-standard “meta” field
to specify the separator, writing a `sep=,` in the first line, but this
only works for reading, because saving the same file changes the
separator back to the locale-dependent character and removes the “meta”
field.
And since everyone expects to open spreadsheet with Excel, i can not
use CSV if i do not want a bunch of support tickets telling me that the
template is all in a single line.
I use an extremely old version of a xlsx reading library for golang[0]
because it is already available in Debian repositories, and the only
thing i want from it is to convert the convoluted XML file into a
string array.
Go is only responsible to read the file and dump its contents into a
temporary table, so that it can execute the PL/pgSQL function that will
actually move that data to the correct relations, much like add_contact
does but in batch.
In PostgreSQL version 16 they added a pg_input_is_valid function that
i would use to test whether input values really conform to domains,
but i will have to wait for Debian to pick up the new version.
Meanwhile, i use a couple of temporary functions, in lieu of nested
functions support in PostgreSQL.
Part of #45
[0]: https://github.com/tealeg/xlsx
These two fields are just for information purposes, as Numerus does not
have any way to wire transfer using these, but people might want to keep
these in the contact’s info as a convenience.
Since not every contact should have an IBAN, e.g., customers, and inside
SEPA (European Union and some more countries) the BIC is not required,
they are in two different relations in order to be optional without
using NULL.
For the IBAN i found an already made PostgreSQL module, but for BIC i
had to write a regular expression based on the information i gathered
from Wikipedia, because the ISO standard is not free.
These two parameters for the add_contact and edit_contact functions are
TEXT because i realized that these functions are intended to be used
from the web application, that only deals with texts, so the
ValueOrNil() function was unnecessarily complex and PostreSQL’s
functions were better suited to “convert” from TEXT to IBAN or BIC.
The same is true for EMAIL and URI domains, so i changed their parameter
types to TEXT too.
Closes#54.
We need to have contacts with just a name: we need to assign
freelancer’s quote as expense linked the government, but of course we
do not have a phone or email for that “contact”, much less a VATIN or
other tax details.
It is also interesting for other expenses-only contacts to not have to
input all tax details, as we may not need to invoice then, thus are
useless for us, but sometimes it might be interesting to have them,
“just in case”.
Of course, i did not want to make nullable any of the tax details
required to generate an invoice, otherwise we could allow illegal
invoices. Therefore, that data had to go in a different relation,
and invoice’s foreign key update to point to that relation, not just
customer, or we would again be able to create invalid invoices.
We replaced the contact’s trade name with just name, because we do not
need _three_ names for a contact, but we _do_ need two: the one we use
to refer to them and the business name for tax purposes.
The new contact_phone, contact_web, and contact_email relations could be
simply a nullable field, but i did not see the point, since there are
not that many instances where i need any of this data.
Now company.taxDetailsForm is no longer “the same as contactForm with
some extra fields”, because i have to add a check whether the user needs
to invoice the contact, to check that the required values are there.
I have an additional problem with the contact form when not using
JavaScript: i must set the required field to all tax details fields to
avoid the “(optional)” suffix, and because they _are_ required when
that checkbox is enabled, but i can not set them optional when the check
is unchecked. My solution for now is to ignore the form validation,
and later i will add some JavaScript that adds the validation again,
so it will work in all cases.
With Oriol agreed that adding or editing invoices, products, and
contacts is not just a “user interruption” but the main flow of the
program, and, as such, it is not correct to use dialogs for these.
More importantly, it was harder to concentrate, specially with the more
involved form of invoices, because of all the “noise” behind the dialog.
It all started when i wanted to try to filter invoices by multiple tags
using an “AND”, instead of “OR” as it was doing until now. But
something felt off and seemed to me that i was doing thing much more
complex than needed, all to be able to list the tags as a suggestion
in the input field—which i am not doing yet.
I found this article series[0] exploring different approaches for
tagging, which includes the one i was using, and comparing their
performance. I have not actually tested it, but it seems that i have
chosen the worst option, in both query time and storage.
I attempted to try using an array attribute to each table, which is more
or less the same they did in the articles but without using a separate
relation for tags, and i found out that all the queries were way easier
to write, and needed two joins less, so it was a no-brainer.
[0]: http://www.databasesoup.com/2015/01/tag-all-things.html
With Oriol we agreed that contacts should have tags, too, and that the
“tag pool”, as it were, should be shared with the one for invoices (and
all future tags we might add).
I added the contact_tag relation and tag_contact function, just like
with invoices, and then realized that the SQL queries that Go had to
execute were becoming “complex” enough: i had to get not only the slug,
but the contact id to call tag_contact, and all inside a transaction.
Therefore, i opted to create the add_contact and edit_contact functions,
that mirror those for invoice and products, so now each “major” section
has these functions. They also simplified a bit the handling of the
VATIN and phone numbers, because it is now encapsuled inside the
PL/pgSQL function and Go does not know how to assemble the parts.
I am not sure if, at the end, all pages that now use
mustRenderAppTemplate will be replaced with mustRenderMainTemplate,
but for now i keep them separate to know which routes are already
“boosted”.
Had to change the data context for that template to include the Slug,
so that the <form> element can set the correct `action` instead of
using the current URI, as it is no longer “correct” (form-wise) when
using HTMx.
It seems that we do not agree en whether the IRPF tax should be
something of the product or the contact, so we decided to make the
product have multiple taxes, just in case, and if only one is needed,
then users can just select one; no need to limit to one.
This is not yet necessary, but the empty label is because i do not want
to select a default tax for products—at least, not without a setting for
it.
Since i need to add the required attribute now to select, because
otherwise the browser would allow sending that empty value, i did not
want to do it unconditionally, just in case.
Our company is a kind-of contact, although it does not appear in the
contact section, thus i could embed the contact form inside the tax
details form to reuse all the common fields.
I implemented the Valuer and Scanner interfaces to InputField and
SelectField for better passing values between the database and Go. I
had a conflict with the Value name and renamed the struct member to Val.
I also had to change the attributes array to be of type
template.HTMLAttr or html/template would replace `form="newtax"`
attribute to `zgotmplz="newtax"` because it deems it “unsafe”. I do
not like having to use template.HTMLAttr when assigning values, but
i do not know what else i can do now.
I have been thinking about that, and it does not make that much sense to
have the titles in the Go source anymore: most of them are static text
that i have to remember to set in the controller each time, and when
the time come i have to face a dynamic title i am sure i will manage
with only the template capabilities—worst comes worst, i can always
define a function.
On the other hand, there is no way i can define a template without its
title and i know that everytime that template is used, no matter what
controller rendered it, it will always have that title.
jordi fita mas