# Issues faced with system\_role table in the database

**URL:** <https://talk.openelis-global.org/t/issues-faced-with-system-role-table-in-the-database/1510>\
**Category:** Development\
**Tags:** dev, gsoc2025\
**Created:** [April 16, 2025, 8:21pm UTC](https://talk.openelis-global.org/t/issues-faced-with-system-role-table-in-the-database/1510 "2025-04-16T20:21:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![segujja\_joseph](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.openelis-global.org/segujja_joseph/32/78_2.png) [@segujja\_joseph](https://talk.openelis-global.org/u/segujja_joseph)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:21pm UTC](https://talk.openelis-global.org/t/issues-faced-with-system-role-table-in-the-database/1510/1 "2025-04-16T20:21:26Z")

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Hello Folks  
i have encounter unusual behaviors while testing the role package in the database and these are as follows;

1. Padded Values in Database for system\_role  
When inserting strings like `clinlims.system_role.name`, they were being stored as `<results[]>`(with spaces) instead of \< results \> . Now this comes about When you insert a value shorter than `n`, it pads the remaining space with spaces due to the fact the `name` field is stored as `char(30)` and you can see below:

> `CREATE TABLE clinlims.system_role ( id numeric(10,0) NOT NULL, name character (30) NOT NULL, description character varying(80), is_grouping_role boolean DEFAULT false, grouping_parent numeric(10,0), display_key character varying(60), active boolean DEFAULT true, editable boolean DEFAULT false`  
> );

now to fix this we can add `varying` to the `name character varying(30) NOT NULL` but that won’t be consistant with the liqubase file which causes liquibase exceptions causing Liquibase Migration Failure so it this means the type changed in the `OpenELIS-Global.sql` has to be reflected in the liquibase file concerning this database table which i can’t quite locate at the moment.

1. DBUnit Boolean Mapping Error  
DBUnit tests failed while processing the `system_role` table, especially the `active` column. the DBUnit passes integers `active="1"` and `active="0"` in the test dataset, but the column is of type `BOOLEAN` as shown in the code block above. Cc. [add Role Integration test by josephbate · Pull Request #1925 · DIGI-UW/OpenELIS-Global-2 · GitHub](https://github.com/DIGI-UW/OpenELIS-Global-2/pull/1925)  
as you can see in the `role.xml`i have opted for intergers for this column though i still think in it might be a configuration issue, haven’t quite known where exactly the problem is.

2. according to the code block above the column `grouping_parent` is created but the dbunit doesn’t seem to find the column, and throws a `org.dbunit.DatabaseUnitException: Exception processing table name='system_role'` this makes it hard to test `RoleService.getReferencingRoles` here also ive failed to find where exactly this occurscoz according to the `OpenELIS-Global.sql` it checks out fine.

still snooping around trying to find a cause and also possible solutions but any dea on this or possible solutions or insights are welcome

Cc. @Moses_Mutesasira @Herbert @mherman22 @caseyi

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**Author:** ![Pranathi\_Nakkitla](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.openelis-global.org/pranathi_nakkitla/32/882_2.png) [@Pranathi\_Nakkitla](https://talk.openelis-global.org/u/Pranathi_Nakkitla)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2025, 9:58am UTC](https://talk.openelis-global.org/t/issues-faced-with-system-role-table-in-the-database/1510/2 "2025-04-20T09:58:32Z")

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1.we should change the column type from character(30) to varchar(30) because it is the syntax in database  
2. Here the column active type is Boolean so for Boolean there is only true or false but not integers like 0 or 1  
3. Here maybe the table column is missing or even null it shows error here  
Thank you