[TAP] field name attribute == column name

[Patrick Dowler]

We recently discussed using the name attribute of FIELD to map directly to the 
column name, in both directions. In a result table, the name attributes 
contain the name(s) or column alias(es). This places a limitation on legal 
values for the name attribute: it must be a legal ADQL column name. If a 
VOTable is uploaded to a TAP service, the caller can assume the name(s) are 
the column names and use them in the query.

However, in other uses of VOTable, the name is used as something to display to 
users, which inevitably means that VOTables made by other services and for 
other purposes will not generally have name(s) that satisfy the more strict 
"ADQL column name requirement".

Example: We are developing a web interface that uses VOTable for content, and 
we want both nice display and tables that are usable with TAP. Is there any 
way to achieve this? In the general case, VOTables will have to be modified 
before upload to TAP (unless they come from another TAP service)... is that 
good enough?

-- 

Patrick Dowler
Tel/Tél: (250) 363-0044
Canadian Astronomy Data Centre
National Research Council Canada
5071 West Saanich Road
Victoria, BC V9E 2M7

Centre canadien de donnees astronomiques
Conseil national de recherches Canada
5071, chemin West Saanich
Victoria (C.-B.) V9E 2M7
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.ivoa.net/pipermail/dal/attachments/20090427/4e6ebd86/attachment-0003.html>