Workaround for objects with IDs as arrays?

[Ryan]

I am working a set of data that contains arrays as IDs. I need some help working around this as it appears unsupported and breaks some things.

Example item from the first set of data:

{
  "id":[1,2,3,4],
  "name":"Another VIP-VID-INPUT-1",
  "internal":true
}

This data is referenced from second set of data which uses the same array IDs to refer to the first set. Example item from the second set of data:

{
  "id":2,
  "name":"Link 02",
  "head_port_id":[1,2,3,4],
  "tail_port_id":[2,2,3,4],
  "disabled":false
}

For starters I am populating a Grid with the second set of data. I use a column.template to replace "head_port_id" and "tail_port_id" with the relevant "name" field from the first set of data. This works fine.

The problem arises when I try to use a DropDownMenu inside column.editor for the "head_port_id" and "tail_port_id" columns. Clicking the cell causes an error. 

editor: function(container, options) {
    var editor = $('<input />')
        .attr('name', options.field) // "head_port_id"
        .attr('required', 'required')
        .attr('data-bind', 'value:' + options.field); // "head_port_id"

    container.append(editor);

    editor.kendoDropDownList({
        autoBind: false,
        dataSource: data.ports.datasource, // the first set of data
        dataTextField: 'name',
        dataValueField: 'id'
    });
}

  The error I get looks like this:

Uncaught TypeError: o[s].get is not a function
E.widget.value.v.extend.refresh @ kendo.all.js:8886
I.extend.bind @ kendo.all.js:8153
w.extend.applyBinding @ kendo.all.js:9146
I.extend.bind @ kendo.all.js:9096
a @ kendo.all.js:9239
a @ kendo.all.js:9247
a @ kendo.all.js:9247
s @ kendo.all.js:9262
c.extend.refresh @ kendo.all.js:36822
c.extend.init @ kendo.all.js:36731
(anonymous function) @ kendo.all.js:2382
b.extend.each @ jquery-1.9.1.min.js:3
b.fn.b.each @ jquery-1.9.1.min.js:3
e.fn.(anonymous function) @ kendo.all.js:2381
ue.ui.DataBoundWidget.extend.editCell @ kendo.all.js:45210
(anonymous function) @ kendo.all.js:45168
b.event.dispatch @ jquery-1.9.1.min.js:3
v.handle @ jquery-1.9.1.min.js:3

Since I have the minified code it's difficult to debug this, even though I can see the full source code (a source map is loaded I assume). Breakpoints and scope vars aren't cooperating.

Anyway I had an idea which was to define a "parse" function for all of the array ID fields, in my Models. It simply converted the ID arrays .toString(). This works pretty well except that it has a fatal flaw in which the data I send to the relevant service is now invalid, since the service is expecting arrays and not strings.

How can I convert these IDs back to arrays, ideally without doing this in the DataSource transport functions (update, create, etc)? I have a generic DataSource wrapper that I am using to wrap our own CRUD interface.. I don't want it to have special cases in it for this once type of data.

[T. Tsonev]

Hi,

Sorry for the delay.

I'm pretty certain that we don't support arrays for ID values. These values should be comparable with simple equality operators and arrays do not satisfy that.
I can't see that clearly stated in the Model documentation and will make sure to add it there.

Apologies for the caused inconvenience.

Regards,
T. Tsonev
Telerik