Re: [Gnumed-devel] GnuMed/Archive // patient object

[Horst Herb]

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003 01:00, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> Our main show-stopper currently is that GnuMed proper is still
> missing a patient object with associated API. I am urgently
> asking Horst to check in what he is working on (test-area) and

For now, you can use the API as provided by the draft of gmPgObject.pgobject 
which is basically the following syntax:
x = pgobject(tablename)
x.column =
x.foreignkey.column=
x.foreignkey.foreignkey.column=

I still haven't found a good solution for handling many-to-many or even 
one-to-many relationships.
I am tempted to just use something like
"identity.names"
where names is a table referencing identity, but not viceversa (one identity 
can have many names, every name is linked to exactly one identity). (For 
newbies: "names" here refers to a complete name set including first names, 
surname, middle names and nick name information)

identity.names would then be either a dictionary or a list.

A dictionary approach is excellent for purposes like handling distinct options 
(like address['home'], address['work']) but not really suitable for the 
concrete example of a persons names where an ordered list would be more 
practical.

This is the one thing which is a pain to automatize.
The alternative would be a procedural API with the usual "set" and "get" 
functions for each attribute.

Coments and suggestions more than welcome.

Horst