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hdmf-dev / hdmf-schema-language

The specification language for HDMF
https://hdmf-schema-language.readthedocs.io
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Document restrictions to datasets without data type inc/def #16

Closed rly closed 6 months ago

rly commented 2 years ago

HDMF does not support datasets that do not have a data type inc/def and contain either a reference dtype a compound dtype. Such a situation should be noted as forbidden in the schema language documentation until support is added.

rly commented 6 months ago

I am of two minds here - this functionality seems perfectly reasonable and should be allowed, but HDMF does not currently support it. This seems to be more of a problem with HDMF than the schema language. We should at least make a docs page on HDMF saying what parts of the schema language are not supported.

Should the language also be restricted until support is added? This is a low priority item with a workaround (just define a new data type) and can be tricky to implement, so it may not be implemented soon. People who consult the schema language docs and are unaware of the API docs about what is supported may be confused. This is more of an education problem. For now, perhaps we could add a note here that says the APIs may not yet provide full support of all of the functionality described in this language spec.