Re: Transitive Properties in @fields

Hi Ralf:

In message <[email protected]>,
Ralf Schlatterbeck writes:
>.. is now implemented:
>It's now possible to e.g. query for issue?@fields=status.name or
>similar. Crossing a multilink in the path (e.g. messages.author) is not
>allowed, the reasoning is that it should be possible to query this in a
>single sql statement in the future (it's currently not implemented that
>way).
>
>Let me know what you think.

Nice. Am I correct that this provides equivalent functionality with
the web interface filter property.

I think we need a little more documentation on this though.  Maybe an
example in rest.txt using a transitive property and showing how it's
representated in the json would be helpful.

Also describing a transitive property in test.txt may be helpful as
well. Transitive property is explained once in customizing.txt and
there is one mention in design.txt. Maybe putting a link to the
description of transitive property in customizing.txt or adding an
inline description of the term in rest.txt would work? I think it's
unlikley for a user to come across the definition.

You mention you can't currently access properties (subproperties) of a
multilink property. A new user may not realize that it only works for
links since other data types (string, integer etc.) don't have
properties. I think mentioning this makes the use case clearer to
developers who may not have a deep knowledge of roundup internals and
be working from a schema.

Do you have a feel for what needs to happen to make transitive
multilinks work (even if slowly) in all backends? You indicate that
work needs to be done on the rdbms/sql back ends. Is that just to make
multilink transitive lookups efficient, or is it a required change to
add functionality to support transitive multilinks?

Thanks for the work.

--
				-- rouilj
John Rouillard
===========================================================================
My employers don't acknowledge my existence much less my opinions.