List examples

There are times when you want a listing of the containers and files in a particular project, session, acquisition or collection. The scitran list method returns a list of the metadata within a container. Search returns information about containers or files that may not have a single parent, but rather can be spread across the whole database.

This list and search methods both return metadata, while the downloadFile method retrieves the file itself. The list method is faster than search and is more likely to return descriptions of only the data objects you want.

Data format

The data returned by list has a different format from the data returned by search. There is a reason - but I have no intention of defending this behavior! I am considering what to do about this.

Examples

Suppose you want a list describing the sessions in a particular project.

project      = st.search('project','project label exact','VWFA');
projectID    = idGet(project{1});
sessions     = st.list('session',projectID);

Or suppose you want to find the projects within a particular group

projects     = st.list('project','wandell');

Be aware that the cell array returned by listObjects differs from that returned by search. In the listObject case the projectID is found by projects{1}.id, rather than projects{1}.project.x_id. You can reduce your programming burden by calling the utility function idGet(...), which returns a container id for either format.

sessions     = st.list('session',idGet(projects{1}));

Continuing down the directory tree,

acquisitions = st.list('acquisition',idGet(sessions{3})); 
files        = st.list('file',idGet(acquisitions{1})); 

To search the collections we use the curator, which is typically an email

collections  = st.list('collection','[email protected]');
sessions     = st.list('collection session',collections{1}.id);
acquisitions = st.list('collection acquisition',collections{1}.id);