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
* <p>
	 * When inserting the cloned element into the design tree, user needs to
	 * care about the element name confliction; that is, the client needs to
	 * call the method
	 * <code>{@link ReportDesignHandle#rename( DesignElementHandle )}</code>
	 * to change the element names.
	 * 
	 * @return Object the cloned design element.
	 * @throws CloneNotSupportedException
	 *             if clone is not supported.
	 */
	public Object doClone( CopyPolicy policy )
			throws CloneNotSupportedException
	{
		
		DesignElement element = (DesignElement) baseClone( );
		
		if ( policy != null )
			policy.execute( this, element );
		
		int slotCount = getDefn( ).getSlotCount( );
		if ( slotCount > 0 )
		{
			element.slots = new ContainerSlot[slotCount];
			for ( int i = 0; i < slotCount; i++ )
				element.slots[i] = slots[i].copy( element, i, policy );
		}
		return element;
	}
	/**