dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Saptarshi,
I do not really see a need for searching by UID. As Lars and other devs
have made clear, there is only one ID, and that is the UID. I do find it a
bit confusing, as we have historically referred to the ID as the internal
ID, but that was before the WebAPI. I have in the past really wanted a way
to do this as well for various reasons, namely for direct injection of data
into the database with SQL. But with the API now quite robust, I have been
moving more and more away from that. With that in mind, I am not sure you
ever really need the internal ID.

I am not opposed to it really and think it would be a nice to have (just as
it would to be able to search on any property of an object), but what is
the real use case here?

Regards,
Jason

PS. +1 for Bob's suggestion of having an explicit endpoint.


On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 4:38 AM, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Saptarshi
>
> I don't think the intent was to ever expose the internal id at all so
> maybe the docs are a bit misleading.  I'd suggest changing id to uid in the
> docs.
>
> Whether it makes sense to search by uid or not is another matter.  There
> might be some fringe cases, but on the whole I would agree there is already
> a url which will get a resource based on its uid so I struggle to see what
> searching adds.  Though it doesn't do much harm, particularly if we change
> the docs.  What it can be much more important is to get hold of a resource
> by its unique code.  Thats where this search functionality worries me a
> little.
>
> If I search for a dataelement with code of 'DE_34' I'd rather be able to
> explicitly do that rather than potentially also getting matching names.  So
> urls like "/api/dataElements/search&code=DE_34" work better for me than
> "/api/dataElements/search/DE_34"
>
> Bob
>
>
>
>
> On 4 November 2013 22:10, Saptarshi Purkayastha <sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Brajesh,
>> There are too many people on this mailing list and I think its
>> inappropriate to spam everyone with out-of-topic and in my opinion
>> nonsensical sentences.
>> I consider this trolling and I request you not to send such emails.
>>
>> Core team,
>> 1. Do you agree this is a valid requirement? or will this never be
>> implemented?
>> 2. Should we just remove search by uid?
>>
>> ---
>> Regards,
>> Saptarshi PURKAYASTHA
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 03:54:04 +0800
>> From: brajesh.murari@xxxxxxxxx
>> To: mlatifov@xxxxxxxxx; lars@xxxxxxxxx
>> CC: dhis2-devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Subject: Re: [Dhis2-devs] Web API - Search by id
>>
>>
>> Hello Mobilars and Saptarshi,
>>
>> Agreed with SOAP is now old fashioned, but we should remember one thing
>> that DHIS2 development programme and its deployment is primarily focused on
>> developing and under developed country to improve their Health, Nutrition
>> and Population Sector Program and its primary diameter of development(but
>> not radious of development) should be focused on Mother and Child Health
>> (MCH) as well as Rehabilitation and Child Health (RCH) Programme only. I am
>> sure in most of the developing and under developed countries from kids to
>> their parents even house surgeon and clinical doctors still they are using
>> every day SOAP products to make their hands clean and jerms protected.
>>
>> But i am little bit surprised suspicious with Mobilars and Saptarshi,
>> whether you both are using it or not in your day to day life, perhaps quite
>> sure 100 % that Weivao and Alex both have started using it every day to
>> make their hands clean and jirms protected.
>>
>> Agreed with Mobilars that SOAP is old fashioned now a days and there are
>> so much new developments has been happened in this area, but still these
>> days there are so many old fashioned concepts are being used in developing
>> and under developed countries like long back Fat Man (FM) doped in Nagasaki
>> detonation causes nuclear explosion and destroying so many lives, but now a
>> days in so many metropolitan cities this FM concept are being used as
>> doping melodious musics, news, game commentary various live saving
>> advertisements and so many audio programmes to make ppl feel good and enjoy
>> their every day life.
>>
>> So in short, i can say, adhering to the old fashioned ideas like
>> SOAP/Knut and HTTP/Bob interfaces are not as bad as just quickly sticking
>> with alpha release of REST type of several applied science products and
>> api's like examination controllers which are not even properly tested and
>> pass user acceptance test for expected requirements. For mapping and
>> searching single resource, i think no need to use url as  co-ordinate
>> geomatory type of concept with multiple url for finding and searching one
>> resource kept in DHIS 2 deployed application, rather it should be more
>> clear in requirement analysis that target object or resource is static, not
>> moving projectile. I think in DHIS 2 application development program,
>> resources are in web-apps deployed on web server and its more likely static
>> some where at a particular instance of time frame not inside flying
>> machine.
>>
>> Agreed with Saptarshi, requirement is little tough to use SOAP in DHIS 2
>> development programe, perhaps I think more qualified ppls thinks simple
>> problems in more complex ways, because they put so many bundles of unwanted
>> ideas in their head and that comes and reflect in their new development
>> programme areas leads and produce new development products and approach of
>> simple thing in more complex paralytic ways. And Saptarshi, you can't
>> be-leave, i know some of the Phd aspirants rangers engaged in DHIS 2
>> development programme, they even don't take proper shower every day not
>> because they are not aware about its use and implications but rather
>> because their head are full with other process and they don't have that
>> much of time to go for shower, pardon but their uid's are quite
>> confidential in India. Therefor I am expecting SOAP web api module
>> development programme should have ppl who are only bachelors and enrolled
>> in DHIS 2 development programme and should be engaged in any family welfare
>> health programme.
>> If such team is available than its fine if not than it must be introduced
>> in DHIS 2 development programe so that they can think about the prospective
>> in more likely neutral way not likely ionized way.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Brajesh Murari
>>
>>
>>
>>   On Monday, 4 November 2013 10:21 PM, Murod Latifov <mlatifov@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>  And of course if one does not belong to any of those
>> categories listed by Brajesh.
>> To me it looks like no one gets qualified for this job, inside and
>> outside DHIS2 team. Very tough requirements Brajesh. Agree with Mobilarsh
>> on open source concept though.
>>
>> Best of luck Brajesh!
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 9:35 PM, Lars Kristian Roland <lars@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>> Not sure if this was ironic, but in case it wasn't: I respectfully
>> disagree. SOAP is old fashioned and should not be woken from the dead.
>> But it is open source software, so one may of course implement SOAP if
>> one feels this is better.
>> Best regards
>> Mobilars
>> 4. nov. 2013 17:28 skrev "Brajesh Murari" <brajesh.murari@xxxxxxxxx>
>> følgende:
>>
>>  I think its time to introduce and develop new module which should be
>> based on Simple Object Architecture Protocol (SOAP), as from the trail mail
>> it shows REST APIs are not in a position to provide secure layers for
>> finding resources, in other words we can say REST APIs are one of the
>> biggest failure in DHIS2 application development. I would request to the
>> list and the DHIS2 global application development team to introduce some
>> developer to work and try to develop DHIS2 web api using SOAP but make sure
>> the team engaged in development of this new SOAP based api should not
>> contain any married developer nor they should be Post Graduate or Phd
>> holder at all in any deciplene nor they should be any consultant or
>> solution architect. This team should belong to simple developer with fresh
>> mind and make sure that team should not contain any developer who has all
>> ready celebrated their silver jubilee in application development.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Brajesh Murari
>>
>>
>>
>>   On Monday, 4 November 2013 9:34 PM, Saptarshi Purkayastha <
>> sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>   It is generally considered to be bad practice in the design of Web API
>> or REST APIs that two URLs point to the same resources.
>> Also I would think that people who want to juggle between existing web
>> functionality and Web API, would like to use internal IDs to get the UID
>> and then use the UID for web API calls. This makes it more flexible to use
>> and switch between the two IDs depending what functionality you want to
>> use, either from core web interface (uses IDs) or Web API (uses UIDs)
>>
>> ---
>> Regards,
>> Saptarshi PURKAYASTHA
>> ------------------------------
>> From: janhenrik.overland@xxxxxxxxx
>> Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 16:57:26 +0100
>> Subject: Re: [Dhis2-devs] Web API - Search by id
>> To: sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx
>> CC: dhis2-devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> It's just for convenience. If you make an app that looks up organisation
>> units by id, code or name you won't have to change the base url based on
>> the parameter.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Saptarshi Purkayastha <sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>  Why would one use the search at all in this case of using the UID?
>> You can directly get the resource with the UID
>> http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/api/organisationUnits/ImspTQPwCqd gives
>> Sierra Leone
>> http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/api/organisationUnits/search/Sierra%20Leoneis the search
>>
>> ---
>> Regards,
>> Saptarshi PURKAYASTHA
>> ------------------------------
>> From: janhenrik.overland@xxxxxxxxx
>> Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 16:36:25 +0100
>> Subject: Re: [Dhis2-devs] Web API - Search by id
>> To: sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx
>> CC: dhis2-devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> Hi, try the uid. For a web API user there is only one id (which is the
>> uid). We don't want to confuse him by saying "uid" in the docs as it
>> implies that there is an "id" as well.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 4:11 PM, Saptarshi Purkayastha <sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>> The Web API documentation here:
>> http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch25s04.html
>> suggests that you can search a resource by its id, code and name.
>> I tried the following:
>> http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/api/organisationUnits/search/559
>> But it says
>>
>> Object not found for query: 559
>>
>> So, does it only work for code and name and not for id?
>>
>> ---
>> Regards,
>> Saptarshi PURKAYASTHA
>>
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