TABLE.md

Table

A Table is a high level object containing metadata which describes the underlying data and data model. The Table object does not contain the actual data.

The Table object is comprised of three properties:

1. data_model describes properties of objects in the Table (e.g. "age")
2. name A unique name identifying the Table (e.g. "subjects")
3. description describes the Table in a human readable way (e.g. "Human age data")

Table Data

The TableData is simply an array of objects that have a common set of properties. A TableData object can be thought of as a table where each cell represents the value of a property (column) for a particular object (row).

The TableData object is made up of two blocks:

1. data_model describes properties of objects in the TableData (e.g. "age")
2. data provide values for properties of objects in the TableData (e.g. "age" : 30)

Data Model

The data_model block follows the Data Model format.

The root objects (items of the data array) must be JSON objects. Their data_model must have its type property equal to "object", not a primitive value (string, number, ..) or array.

Data

The content of the TableData is provided in the data block. Each object is a set of values with keys corresponding to keys in the data_model.

Examples

This is a Table with one data_model property and meta data describing the table:

{
       "data_model": {
               "properties": {
                       "age" : {
                               "description": "age of a subject, in days",
                               "type": "number"
                       }
               }
       },
       "name": "subjects",
        "description": "Information on all subjects in the study"
}

This is a TableData with one data_model property and two objects:

{
       "data_model": {
               "properties": {
                       "age" : {
                               "description": "age of a subject, in days",
                               "type": "number"
                       }
               }
       },
       "data": [
               { "age": 30 },
               { "age": 40 }
       ]
}

This is a TableData that references an externally defined data_model: the Data Repository Service developed by the GA4GH Cloud Work Stream:

{
       "data_model": {
               "$ref": "http://schema.ga4gh.org/drs/0.1.0#/definitions/Object"
       },
       "data": [
               {
                       "id": "file-001",
                       "name": "file-001.txt",
                       "size": 100,
                       "created": "2019-01-01T12:00:01Z",
                       "checksums": [
                       ],
                       "access_methods": [
                               {
                                       "type": "https"
                               }
                       ]
               },
               {
                       "id": "file-002",
                       "name": "file-002.txt",
                       "size": 101,
                       "created": "2019-01-01T12:00:00Z",
                       "checksums": [
                       ],
                       "access_methods": [
                               {
                                       "type": "https"
                               }
                       ]
               }
       ]
}

This is a TableData whose Data Model mixes inline and externally referenced properties:

{
       "data_model": {
               "description": "A collection of subjects and their data objects",
               "properties": {
                       "subject": {
                               "type": "object",
                               "properties": {
                                       "id": {
                                               "description": "anonymous identifier of a subject",
                                               "type": "string"
                                       },
                                       "age": {
                                               "description": "age of a subject, in years",
                                               "type": "number"
                                       }
                               }
                       },
                       "drs": {
                               "$ref": "http://schema.ga4gh.org/drs/0.1.0#/definitions/Object"
                       }
               }
       },
       "data": [
               {
                       "subject": {
                               "id": "ABC100",
                               "age": 30,
                       },
                       "drs": {
                               "id": "file-001",
                               "name": "file-001.txt",
                               "size": 100,
                               "created": "2019-01-01T12:00:01Z",
                               "checksums": [
                               ],
                               "access_methods": [
                                       {
                                               "type": "https"
                                       }
                               ]
                       }
               },
               {
                       "subject": {
                               "id": "ABC101",
                               "age": 40,
                       },
                       "drs": {
                               "id": "file-002",
                               "name": "file-002.txt",
                               "size": 101,
                               "created": "2019-01-01T12:00:00Z",
                               "checksums": [
                               ],
                               "access_methods": [
                                       {
                                               "type": "https"
                                       }
                               ]
                       }
               }
       ]
}