Idas Architectural Todo

This list represents items needed to be done which are architectural in nature, or have to do with the IdAS API/SPI interfaces.

• Support for "building block" context providers (e.g. that do certain kinds of attribute transformation).
  • Need
  • Each building block context will expect to be told the rest of the chain of contextRefs.
  • Perhaps a Factory takes a list of ContextRefs instead of a sole ContextRefs
  • When the consumer of IdAS finally gets the Context instance, that instance might be the head of a chain of Context instances. Perhaps the registry only sees the top one.
• Attribute Metadata: Paul mentioned a need to associate metadata with an atribute's value and not its type. Paul may need to expound on this.
  • Metadata access: Allow subsets of metadata to be fetched. (IHasMetadata.java)
• Schema: Add method(s) which return the schema as a stream, DOM document, or other iterable object. (IContext.java)
• Digital Subjects
  • Interrogation
    • Attribute Restriction List: Some methods need to be able to allow the user to specify which attributes to be returned when accessing Digital Subjects. This will aid in performance and scalability. (IContext.java)
      • We may need the same for metadata.
    • Filter
      • Format: Define the filter format for getSubjects. (IContext.java)
      • Allow filters In other methods: removeSubject (IContext.java)
    • verifySubjectAttributes doesn't leave a way to verify that a DS representing a group contains a specific member in its member value. (IContext.java)
    • Should getSubject(cuid) throw an exception if cuid is not found, or just return null?
  • Updates
    • Transaction Semantics: Are updates guaranteed to fully succeed or fully fail? (IContext.java)
    • Updates to IDigitalSubject instances: discuss whether modifications to a returned IDigitalSubject affect the stored subject. (IContext.java)
    • Can't remove an attribute using updateSubject. (IContext.java)
    • Can't update components of an attribute's value (IContext.java)
    • Collisions: Determine what to do when importing data and collisions occur. Does import override, add to , or error when a DS exists? (IContext.java)
  • Relationships hold IDigitalSubjects. Shouldn't the relationship be a type which is identifier-based? It seems a bit heavyweight to have to produce a full DS just to represent a relationship. (IDigitalSubject)
  • Data Model
    • Document the special "uniqueIdentifier" attribute
    • Is there a special "digitalSubjectType" attribute? (IDigitalSubject.java)
• Context Provider

1. Policy Format: Describe format in more detail. Give examples. (IContextProvider.java)
2. Closing: Does this also perform the opposite of "context creation"? (IContextProvider.java)
3. Review documented semantics of IContext.openContext.
4. Do we allow a change of AuthN materials on an already open Context?

• Context
  • Does export/import only export/import Digital Subjects, or the entire Context (Metadata, Schema, DS, Relationships)? (IContext.java)
  • Export/Import Filter Format: Define the format (IContext.java)
  • Export/Import data representation format. Document what this would look like and how, given the string one could understand what the format is. Is there a registry? (IContext.java)
• Relationships
  • How are two relationships compared for equality? (IHasRelationships.java)
  • Does createRelationship also add? (IHasRelationships.java)
• Subcontexts as a special first-class relationship. Include optional arguments to search methods (e.g., getSubjects()) to specify whether Subcontexts should be included in the search.
• IContext::getSubjectSchema(), IContext::setSubjectSchema()
• policy methods for IContext