[Biojava-l] Location formatting interface change

Cox, Greg gcox@netgenics.com
Thu, 28 Jun 2001 17:00:46 -0400


I'm implementing location formatting for Swissprot, and tripped across the
following:  A location like, FuzzyLocation (1.5)..(6.10) cannot be
represented in swissprot; the semantics just aren't rich enough.  I have
three options to propose:

1) Throw an exception.  This involves changing the FileFormer interface and
potentially breaking code.
2) Make a best guess, based on the resolver.  This doesn't fully represent
the location, and could mislead the user.
3) Make a best guess, and emit an event.  My favorite, it allows users who
care to know that they can't trust the string they get back, and maintains
blissful ignorance for the others.  I'm not sure it's intuitive though.

Greg