Customer Release Notes for 2.0.4-GA

If a client has extended OOB Broadleaf class like JpaCustomer, then _class may hold the name of that derived type instead of the OOB Broadleaf class. _baseClass field is intended to capture the 'parent' or 'base' of get_class(), which in many cases will be the OOB Broadleaf class.

If set, this becomes relevant in message listener/handler components, as they are typically checking these class fields to determine whether they support processing a message. For example, consider a message with (_class = ClientCustomer.class, _baseClass = Customer.class), and a CustomerHandler that declares support for Customer.class. If the handler is configured to check for _baseClass first, then it will automatically accept this message for processing - the benefit here is that the client does not have to extend/override the CustomerHandler component itself to explicitly declare support for ClientCustomer.class.