[MOBY-dev] CommonSubs.pm: complexResponse

[Frank Gibbons]

Hi Pieter,

>Furthermore in CommonSubs.pm complexResponse is gone from '% EXPORT_TAGS'. 
>There is a comment "complexResponse is *not* here, but
>is in @EXPORT_OK", but it's not there either:
>our @EXPORT_OK = ("collectionResponse", @{$EXPORT_TAGS{'all'}});
>
>Without complexResponse it's no longer possible to send secondary
>articles back to a client :(.

I'm the one who put that comment in there. The code had two long lists 
containing almost the same things, but as you see, there was one component 
which was lacking. I guess I mistyped the name, putting 
"collectionResponse" instead of "complexResponse". My bad!

One reason for the confusion is that as I was writing the unit tests, I 
just couldn't figure out what the purpose of complexResponse was, how it 
was different from collectionResponse. Now that I look at it again, it 
seems not so puzzling (I guess I was fairly punchy after writing so many 
tests), but it would help a great deal to have someone who actually uses 
write an explanation of why it's useful. CommonSubs contains lots of 
routines that appear almost identical in their functionality, yet are 
subtly different (for example, pulling out parts of the moby:MOBY message 
at different levels). We need good explanations for why it is useful to do 
each of these.

How about this: I've fixed that line defining EXPORT_OK, and checked it 
back in. Could you add some useful explanation of complexReponse's purpose 
and usage to the POD? I'm thinking specifics - the current text is way too 
generic (e.g., "function: wraps articles in the appropriate (mobyData) 
structure") We also need an example showing what exactly this routine 
should do, so that we can add it to the test suite. If you want to just 
send me an example, I can construct the test.

-Frank

PhD, Computational Biologist,
Harvard Medical School BCMP/SGM-322, 250 Longwood Ave, Boston MA 02115, USA.
Tel: 617-432-3555       Fax: 
617-432-3557       http://llama.med.harvard.edu/~fgibbons