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Need the ability to read from and write to the <desc> element within .tds files

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#72 8 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
python
Domain
tooling

Research direction

Start by locating the parser and writer entry points for Tableau .tds files, then trace how column elements are represented. The change is complete when callers can read and write the column’s desc content and determine the table a field comes from, including the formatted-text example described in the issue.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement

In order to more efficiently manage metadata documentation regarding fields in Tableau data sources, I need the ability to read the information in the element for a column so that I can write that information to a database. Conversely I need to be able to write information back out to this element after reading the information stored in a database. It will also be necessary for me to be able to determine what table a field comes from. Below is an example of the data I want to be able to read/write.

  <column datatype='string' name='[STATUS]' role='dimension' type='nominal'>
    <desc>
      <formatted-text>
        <run bold='true' fontsize='10'>Case Mix Index VAL</run>
        <run fontcolor='#686868'>&#10;The MSDRG weight for inpatients with charges &gt; 0. Does not include inpatient rehab, normal&#10;newborns or MSDRG 999.</run>
        <run bold='true' fontcolor='#297a98'>&#10;&#10;HSP_ACCT_MULT_DRGS.DRG_WEIGHT (HAR 651)</run>
      </formatted-text>
    </desc>
  </column>
Dominant language
Python
Stars
363
Forks
183
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