How does IdeaBlade handle Identity columns

   Identity columns pose a special problem for IdeaBlade. When a business object that uses an identity column is first created, it is assigned a negative temporary id. Only when the business object gets saved to the database, does the database assign the business object its permanent id. The difficulty with this is that if the PersistenceManager wants to refetch the entity, it doesn't know what permanent id to use.
Devforce solves this problem with a clever approach. Rather than having the database assign the permanent id, we assign it ourselves. We do this be creating a "hole" in the id space. If the last number used by the id generator was 1356 (for example), we create a range of ids from 1357 to 1367 that we own and can't be used by any other user.
The Object Mapper is fully aware of Identity columns.