Grails Domain With "First" and "Last" Properties - grails

Question

I recently inherited a Grails code base with a domain class called Name with (among others), the properties first and last to represent the first and last parts of a name, respectively. When writing a unit test which utilized this domain, I ran into some problems stemming from the names of these properties being the same as the first and last methods within Grails. Now, I can fix the problems by renaming the properties, but I was wondering if there is a way within Grails to use the property names first and last.
Namely, the error I was receiving was No signature of method: com.example.Name.first() is applicable for argument types: () values: []
Possible solutions: first(), first(java.lang.String), first(java.util.Map), list(), list(java.util.Map), print(java.lang.Object) when Grails attempts to apply a nullable: true constraint to the properties.
Here's the source of Name:
class Name {
String first
String middle
String last
static belongsTo = [person : Person]
static constraints = {
first(nullable:true)
middle(nullable:true)
last(nullable:true)
}
public static Name findOrCreate(String first, String middle, String last){
def name
name = Name.createCriteria().get{
and{
eq('first', first)
eq('middle', middle)
eq('last', last)
}
if(!name){
name = new Name()
name.first = first
name.middle = middle
name.last = last
}
return name
}
static mapping = {
cache true
}
}

Answer 1

You say that this error happens in the constraints block. In that case you may be able to get it working with an explicit delegate., i.e.
static constraints = {
delegate.first(nullable:true)
// and similarly for last
}
to force the first to be treated as a call into the constraints DSL rather than to the static GORM method.