TAP 1.1: The table_name values must be unique

[Mark Taylor]

Brian,

On Mon, 19 Nov 2018, Van Klaveren, Brian N. wrote:

> In terms of use cases, making a tree-like catalog/schema/table browser is much easier when you don't have to worry about parsing the schema-qualified identifier. I'm not sure that's a killer app though. 

The approach I've taken (in topcat) to providing a hierarchical browser
for the tables is just to group tables by (TAP) schema (as declared
in the metadata, not inferred from table names) - in fact
providing a grouping for tables is, as far as I understand it,
the only purpose that the TAP schema serves.  I deliberately don't
attempt to parse the table names in order to make sense of them,
since it seems like TAP doesn't want you to do that.
Probably one should not attempt to provide a TAP catalog/schema/table
browser, since catalog is not a TAP concept.

I am prepared to believe that this looks surprising if you come
from an SQL background, but on its own terms it seems to be
straightforward and consistent enough.

Mark

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-9288776  http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/