Feature Request: Profiles specified via protobuf

[sttawm]

Currently, it's a little tricky to figure out how to write an extension and/or profile. Assuming the users of this library are already familiar with protobufs, I'd say it'd be simpler if an extension could be generated from a protobuf file (i.e. if generate_protos_from_config.sh accepted a .proto).

That said, I am not sure about whether in general a .proto has "too much" or "not enough" information to generate an extension (as I still figure out how to write an extension and profile).

[nikklassen]

This sounds like an interesting feature to consider. You may also want to look into FHIR shorthand (FSH) as that is intended to make the process of authoring extensions/profiles easier.

[nickgeorge]

Hey Matt - this is one of the most poorly documented parts of the code base, sorry! Nik is right that Fhir Shorthand is a super interesting project that we're looking in to, too, but to be clear, FhirProto DOES support defining extensions and profiles via a proto - that's what profile_config.proto defines. I know you're working through the protogen example here: https://github.com/google/fhir-examples/tree/master/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile, that is an example defining custom extensions and profiles in an implementation guide (you can define Terminologies, too, although it hasn't been added to the example yet).

Finally, a wonky technical point - .proto files do not actually contain data e.g., data to define profiles and extensions, .proto files define the schema of the data - e.g., what fields are on patient. When we want to store actual data in a given proto schema in a text file, we use .prototxt - e.g., a text representation of an actual proto instance, not the difiner for a proto.

So, e,g., in https://github.com/google/fhir-examples/tree/master/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile, the .prototxt files are the user input, that is passed via the bazel rule to the generator.

[DataAndDeadlifts]

Heya - I'm working through the protogen example as well and I'm trying to understand what is intended with the script meant to generate the myprofile.proto

Here is my terminal output;

bash % ~/bin/generate_definitions_and_protos.sh //proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile
INFO: Analyzed target //proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile_definitions (0 packages loaded, 0 targets configured).
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile_definitions up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile/myprofile.json
  bazel-bin/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile/myprofile_extensions.json
  bazel-bin/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile/myprofile_terminologies.json
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.130s, Critical Path: 0.00s
INFO: 1 process: 1 internal.
INFO: Build completed successfully, 1 total action
ERROR: Skipping '//proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile_proto_files': no such target '//proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile_proto_files': target 'myprofile_proto_files' not declared in package 'proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile' (did you mean 'myprofile_proto_zip'?) defined by ~/fhir-examples/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile/BUILD
WARNING: Target pattern parsing failed.
ERROR: no such target '//proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile_proto_files': target 'myprofile_proto_files' not declared in package 'proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile' (did you mean 'myprofile_proto_zip'?) defined by /Users/jake/Projects/occ-ds-sandbox/POC/gemini-fhir-proto/fhir-examples/proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile/BUILD
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.107s
INFO: 0 processes.
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully (0 packages loaded)
Build Failed: //proto/google/fhir_examples/myprofile:myprofile_proto_files

If I understand the flow here - the initial generate_protos_utils.sh script completes the build of the _definitions target, but doesn't construct the _proto_files target.

In the rule for generating FHIR protos I see a _proto_zip target being defined but not utilized.

When I change the generate_definitions_and_protos.sh script to build the _proto_zip target instead of _proto_files it successfully builds.

When I check bazel-bin/proto/google/fhir-examples/myprofile I find the zip file with the myprofile.proto inside - is this the intended behavior?