[ome-devel] Question about the new OME::Remote API

[Zachary Pincus]

Hello,

So my project to get a simple C library together for interacting with 
the OME remote framework is grinding forward. I've got a couple 
questions about the API that I can't really seem to fully puzzle out 
from the Java and Perl client/server code. If anyone could help get me 
squared away, I would much appreciate it.

Specifically, I'm wondering about the "fields_wanted" parameter of some 
of the generic object loading methods in GenericFacade.

This param needs to be sent over the wire as a hash with some special 
syntax, which is then reformatted by "__massageFieldsWanted" in 
GenericAssembler, and the further passed around in the DTO code. My 
questions are:

(1) What is this syntax? (And why must it be massaged later down the 
line?) It's a little hard to intuit from the code.
(2) Is there any syntax for "get me all the fields" a la "select * from 
..."

Possibly a little more generally, a bit of guidance on the care and 
feeding of the DTOs in general would be most helpful. (e.g., are there 
any non-obvious expectations/assumptions that the remote API makes 
about outgoing/incoming DTOs?)

Thanks for any help,


Zach Pincus

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