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/metadata/ElementRefPropertyType.java
/**
	 * Validates the element name.
	 * 
	 * @param module
	 *            report design
	 * @param targetDefn
	 *            definition of target element
	 * @param name
	 *            element name
	 * @return the resolved element reference value
	 * @throws PropertyValueException
	 *             if the type of target element is not that target definition,
	 *             or the element with the given name is not in name space.
	 */
	private ElementRefValue validateStringValue( Module module,
			ElementDefn targetDefn, PropertyDefn propDefn, String name )
			throws PropertyValueException
	{
		name = StringUtil.trimString( name );
		if ( name == null )
			return null;
		IModuleNameSpace elementResolver = module
				.getModuleNameSpace( targetDefn.getNameSpaceID( ) );
		ElementRefValue refValue = null;
		
		refValue = elementResolver.resolve( name, propDefn );
		assert refValue != null;
		
		if ( !refValue.isResolved( ) )
			return refValue;