[TAP] field name attribute == column name

[Francois Ochsenbein]

Well, SQL does not place any restriction on column names 
when names are enclosed within double quotes.
This way also keeps the case of column names, i.e.
  select "x", "X", "M/L" from mytable
is perfectly legal in SQL, and refers to 3 different columns.
Therefore quoting the FIELD's name attribute should work.
I'm not sure what happens if the name contains a quote, but
I guess the double-quoting is legal, e.g. a column named mag(r=5") 
would become "mag(r=5"")" in the SQL command.

Personnally I would prefer the quoting way rather than imposing
contraints on column names (other than unicity within a single table).

Cheers, francois

>
>VOTable is a general container.  It is reasonable for a specific
>application such as TAP to place additional constraints on the
>contents of a VOTable, such as what is allowed for NAME.  It seems
>clear that we do need to do so in order to use VOTable for table
>uploads (probably there will be some other restrictions as well).
>
>> 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?
>
>I think that VOTables intended for uploading tables to TAP will be
>specifically generated for this purpose.
>
> 	- Doug
>
>
>On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, Patrick Dowler wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 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
>>
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Francois Ochsenbein    ------   Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
   11, rue de l'Universite 67000 STRASBOURG  Phone: +33-(0)390 24 24 29
Email: francois at astro.u-strasbg.fr (France)    Fax: +33-(0)390 24 24 17
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