[ome-devel] quick question about SemanticTypeDefinitions

[Ilya Goldberg]

Hi Curtis

On Jul 20, 2006, at 5:19 PM, Curtis Rueden wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Is it possible for an Element of a SemanticType to be a reference with
> RefersTo="*" or some such, to create an untyped reference?

Void * isn't currently supported, but its on the list - there's no  
implementation for late typing, which we would need to do this.  The  
type of the reference (i.e. its target) would be specified when the  
object is instantiated rather than when its class is declared.

The implementation would most likely hide the fact that it created a  
separate (most likely mapping) table and type between this reference  
and the referand.
Either that or this reference would be unconstrained by the DB, which  
is also an option (though less attractive due to safety and the  
special handling required).

There are a couple of STs to do some of this though - ImageAnnotation  
and DatasetAnnotation, and its pretty easy to add more STs with  
explicit references.
Of course explicit references are fundamentally different from void */ 
late-typing references.

Sorry-
-Ilya


> I ask because we
> are looking to add a generic "notes" feature to our OME Metadata  
> Notebook
> program, where you could attach essentially a key/value pair to any  
> element
> in the XML, and it would be nice to be able to use a single type.
>
> For example:
> <OME>
>  ...
>  <Project>
>    ...
>    <CustomAttributes>
>      <ProjectNote ID="3" name="" value=""/>
>    </CustomAttributes>
>  </Project>
>  <Image>
>    ...
>    <CustomAttributes>
>      <ImageNote ID="1" name="Thoughts" value="I could have sworn this
> specimen died yesterday"/>
>      <ImageNote ID="2" name="Thoughts" value="And I'm hungry"/>
>      <ImageNote ID="16" thing="urn:lsid:
> loci.wisc.edu:LogicalChannel:OWS67234" name="foo" value="bar"/>
>    </CustomAttributes>
>  </Image>
>  <CustomAttributes>
>    <GlobalNote ID="4" .../>
>  </CustomAttributes>
> </OME>
>
> If RefersTo must point to a specific SemanticType, then we must  
> create a
> separate type of Note for each kind of ST we want to annotate. Or  
> is there
> an easier way to do this?
>
> Also, it is possible to specify the SemanticType's AppliesTo as  
> more than
> just G, P, D, I or F? For instance, in the example above, it would  
> be cool
> to just have one SemanticType, "Note," with AppliesTo="PDIF" so  
> that it
> could appear beneath any of the various CustomAttributes locations.
>
> Thanks,
> Curtis
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