Ed-Fi Descriptors
- Ian Christopher
Descriptors in the Ed-Fi Data Standard are a set of mechanisms to support flexible enumerations or code tables. Each Descriptor has the following attributes:
- [abc]DescriptorId (primary key)[7]
- namespace
- codeValue
- shortDescription
- description
- priorDescriptorId
- effectiveBeginDate
- effectiveEndDate
- A map back to an Ed-Fi enumeration value
The GET of a resource must return the namespace and codeValue for Descriptor enumerations. Other components of the Descriptor can be retrieved from the Descriptor resource.
The PUT or POST of a resource must specify the namespace and codeValue for each Descriptor value.
URI Construction and HTTP Verb Usage for Ed-Fi Descriptors
Descriptors are also exposed as Resources of an Ed-Fi REST API and can be accessed and manipulated as follows:
Table 3. Accessing and Manipulating Descriptors
| Resource | POST | GET | PUT | DELETE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
/[abc]Descriptors | Adds a new Descriptor | Gets all Descriptors for the subtype | Error | Error |
/[abc]Descriptors/{id} | Error | Gets all attributes for an individual Descriptor | Updates an individual Descriptor | Deletes an individual Descriptor |
Descriptor References
References to a Descriptor value are a URI constructed with the namespace followed by the URL-encoded codeValue:
[namespace]/[codeValue]
For example, to refer to the behaviorDescriptor value in the Ed-Fi namespace with a codeValue of “School Violation,” the reference would be the following URI:
https://www.ed-fi.org/Descriptor/BehaviorDescriptor.xml/School%20Violation
Implementations may provide a default namespace that allows client systems to provide codeValues without the namespace prefix.
7 Where [abc] is the name of a specific Descriptor.