Bug 149251 Inconsistent Handling of a Non-inheritable ROM Property
For a ROM property defined to be non-inheritable, an empty string property value should be consistently handled as an empty string, not as null. For example, an oda.dataSource extension defines a data source property with canInherit=false. When a oda-data-source handle get saved in a report design, it correctly includes the tag for such property, even when an empty string value is specified. <oda-data-source extensionID="my.oda.plugin" name="my Data Source" id="24"> ... <property name="ApplicationServer"></property> </oda-data-source> However, later when using the DE API to read its property value, a null is returned. Then when the report design is subsequently saved, the property tag is lost. Expects that an empty string value of a non-inhertiable property should be preserved.
model/org.eclipse.birt.report.model/src/org/eclipse/birt/report/model/core/DesignElement.java
if ( value == null )
			return null;
		if ( value instanceof ArrayList )
			return (ArrayList) value;
		return null;
	}
	/**
	 * Gets the set of property definitions available to this element. Includes
	 * all properties defined for this element, all user-defined properties
	 * defined on this element or its ancestors, and any style properties that
	 * this element supports.
	 * 
	 * @return a list of property definitions
	 */
	public List getPropertyDefns( )
	{
		List list = getDefn( ).getProperties( );
		DesignElement e = this;
		while ( e != null )
		{
			if ( e.userProperties != null )
				list.addAll( e.userProperties.values( ) );
			e = e.getExtendsElement( );
		}
		return list;
	}
	/**
	 * Returns the internal name of the element. This name matches the name of
	 * the definition for the element.
	 *