Allow additional data

Start by reviewing the existing files_information endpoint and the proposed /meta routes for projects, topics, files, comments, and documents. Compare the metadata and additional_data examples, then clarify the supported fields, value types, and response behavior. Done means an agreed, implementable specification for standardized additional data.

Every implementation I've seen of the BCF API has additional data in the responses; it's only natural, since every software has features not found in others that they want to handle.

However, I think it's possible to standardize these infos (at least some of them), so that a client could at least display them, and even allow to dynamically generate a form with values. There's already some semblance of this in the files_information endpoint but I think it's not enough.

Here's a quick example.

Define data

Create a /meta route suffix for some routes: projects, topics, files, comments, documents. I feel these are probably the most likely to have non-standardized informations.

• /bcf/{version}/projects/meta
• /bcf/{version}/projects/{project_id}/topics/meta
• /bcf/{version}/projects/{project_id}/topics/{guid}/files/meta
• /bcf/{version}/projects/{project_id}/topics/{guid}/comments/meta
• /bcf/{version}/projects/{project_id}/documents/meta

These routes would return the following informations:

[
  {
    "code": "X",
    "label": "Label X",
    "id": "f8fab089-e26a-46d1-8a6c-721e4a8435d8",
    "is_mandatory": false,
    "is_modifiable": true,
    "maximum_length": 200,
    "value_type": "String"
  },
  {
    "code": "Y",
    "label": "Label Y",
    "id": "9e203f1b-7881-4cda-8dac-acc706184595",
    "is_mandatory": false,
    "ismodifiable": true,
    "maximum_length": 10,
    "value_type": "List",
    "values": [
      {
        "code": "A",
        "label": "Label A"
      },
      {
        "code": "B",
        "label": "Label B"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Display data

The data defined in the /meta endpoint would be returned in the following way, for instance for a project list /bcf/{version}/projects/:

[{
    "project_id": "F445F4F2-4D02-4B2A-B612-5E456BEF9137",
    "name": "Example project 1",
    "additional_data": [
        { "code": "X", "value": "Lorem ispum" },
        { "code": "Y", "value": "A" }
    ]
}, {
    "project_id": "A233FBB2-3A3B-EFF4-C123-DE22ABC8414",
    "name": "Example project 2",
    "additional_data": [
        { "code": "X", "value": "Donec tortor nisi" },
        { "code": "Y", "value": "B" }
    ]
}]