[ome-devel] Remote API update question

[Zachary Pincus]

Hello,

I've got a few minor questions about how updating objects with the 
remote framework works.

Specifically, when you pack up a DTO for update over the wire, there 
appear to be two ways to specify objects to which that DTO refers.

Say we've got pulled a DTO from over the network for a Feature that 
looks like so:

{
   'image': {'id': 2},
   'tag': 'CELL',
   'id': 78
}

Now say we want to change the image to which feature 78 refers to image 
1.

We could do this two ways:
(a) Change the DTO to look like so:
{
   'image': 'REF:Image:1',
   'tag': 'CELL',
   'id': 78
}
and call updateObject on that DTO, or

(b) Change the DTO to look like so:
{
   'image_id': 2,
   'tag': 'CELL',
   'id': 78
}
and call updateObject.

Several questions:
(1) Why are there two possible methods?
(2) If we want to have the DTO refer to a new image, we can make it 
look like so:
{
   'image': 'NEW:1',
   'tag': 'CELL',
   'id': 78
}
and call updateObjects with a list which contains the new image first, 
and then this DTO.
The question is whether this method would work if we set 'image_id' to 
'NEW:1' rather than setting 'image'.
(3) In option (a) above, we need to set the 'image' field to 
'REF:Image:1' -- why not 'REF:1'? The fields are strongly-typed, after 
all. OME knows that it must be a reference to an Image. In fact, if we 
set 'image' to 'REF:Feature:1' or even 'REF:foobar:1' it works just the 
same way, with no errors. Is there any reason for this?

Thanks,

Zach Pincus

Department of Biochemistry and Program in Biomedical Informatics
Stanford University School of Medicine