Create an offline EntityManager

You may want to create an offline EntityManager during testing and development or to run the application when disconnected from the network and database.

The most frequently used EntityManager constructor is declared like this:

All of the parameters are optional. The parameter of interest in this topic is shouldConnect which is true by default. That means that the manager automatically starts connecting to the EntityServer. 

You'll probably do just that in production. But you might want to set it false. 

Maybe your application doesn't have a connection to the server at right now. Maybe the user has launched the application while several miles high on an airplane. You could design the application to run disconnected until a network connection can physically be established.

Maybe the application shouldn't connect at all during this session. Many automated tests require the presence of an EntityManager, perhaps one populated with test entities. They don't need - and don't want - to talk to the server or the database. That would only make the tests slower and vulnerable to interrupted connections and disabled databases. 

Many programmers run disconnected when running the application in development for the same reasons; there might not even be a database in the early stages of development.

Of course you won't be able to save changes while disconnected. Fortunately, most automated tests don't need to save and the savvy developer can easily divert save requests while in development mode.

You can create a disconnected EntityManager like this: