Meadowlark - Get Search Pattern Gaps

The ODS/API supports a "Get search pattern" for retrieving documents for a resource using property values. However, the property values used for search often do not map neatly to properties in the resource document. This is because the search properties actually expose the column names of the underlying relational schema, and those names can follow very complex rules. The expression of column naming in the search pattern examples below are in order of increasing complexity.

Example 1: Simple and Role Naming on FeederSchoolAssociation

FeederSchoolAssociation provides two naming examples around schoolId. The document itself has two schoolIds, one as part of a standard School reference named schoolReference and one as part of a School reference with a Feeder role name, named feederSchoolReference:

These two schoolIds are searched on in the ODS/API as schoolId and feederSchoolId:

This is because in the database implementation role names are used as prefixes to column names, here to differentiate the column names that refer to the two different Schools.

Example 2: Simple Merge on Section

Section provides an example of a merge scenario where one search field maps to multiple document properties. A Section document has three schoolIds, one each for courseOfferingReference, locationReference, and locationSchoolReference:

These three schoolId document properties map to only two schoolIds in the search properties, schoolId and locationSchoolId:

This is because in the database implementation the schoolId column is unified as part of the foreign key reference to both the CourseOffering and Location tables.

Example 3: Prefix Variations from Merge, Role Name and Name Collapsing on Grade

Grade provides an example of four different column naming variations within a single reference. The GradingPeriod reference on Grade is itself role named with GradingPeriod. As seen in Example 1, this typically results in the prefixing of reference properties with the role name. Note that in the document, gradingPeriodReference has the properties gradingPeriodDescriptor, periodSequence, and schoolYear:

Additionally, Grade has a schoolId on both gradingPeriodReference and studentSectionAssociationReference:

In the search properties, there is an inconsistency of prefixing in relation to these document properties. schoolId and gradingPeriodDescriptor are unchanged while a "grading" prefix has been added to periodSequence and a "gradingPeriod" prefix has been added to schoolYear:

schoolId is unchanged because there is a merge between the schoolId in gradingPeriodReference and studentSectionAssociationReference, so they share the same column in the database. gradingPeriodDescriptor is unchanged because the role name of the reference (gradingPeriod) is collapsed on column names. schoolYear becomes gradingPeriodSchoolYear for normal role name reasons. periodSequence becomes gradingPeriodSequence because the overlap of the "period" between periodSequence and role name gradingPeriod is collapsed.