caBIG_dotNET. Service

string version()

Get the version of the caBIG dotNET server.

Returns

A string encoding the caBIG dotNET Server API hosted on the server.

string news()

Get news from the caBIG dotNET server such as planned outages and other administrative information.  News are designed for human readers, a blog of sorts.

Returns

A string with html markup tags, describing the server news.

string indexServiceReflected()

Get the GSH (URL) to the caGRID Index Service reflected by the caBIG dotNET server.  All available caGRID grid services are manually registered in a central caGRID Index Service maintained by the NCI’s Center for Bioinformatics.  Discovery queries to caBIG dotNET server are routed to the central caGRID Index Service specified by this URL.  Since there can only be one caGRID Index Service (maybe multiple caGRID Index Services for different caGRID versions) hosted at a static URL address, this method isn’t typically useful.

Returns

A string with the URL to the caGRID Index Service.

bool isClientSupported( string  clientVersion )

Check if the caBIG dotNET Server API supports the client’s caBIG dotNET API.  The server and client caBIG dotNET API versions need to be kept in sync.  If this method returns false, you probably need to upgrade, or connect to a caBIG dotNET server running legacy API.  The intention is to keep the caBIG dotNET server APIs backwards compatible.

Parameters

Returns

Boolean specifying if this client’s caBIG dotNET Client API is supported by the server.

See

clientsSupportedMsg

string clientsSupportedMsg()

Get a description which client API versions the caBIG dotNET Server API supports.  Typically clients will display the output of clientsSupportedMsg() to the user only if isClientSupported() returns false.

Returns

String describing which client API versions the server supports.

ArrayList get_URLs2AllDataServices()

Queries the caGRID Index Service and returns a list of URLs (Grid Service Handle) to all registered DataServices. caBIG DataServices, along with their descriptive meta-data, are manually registered in the caGRID Index Service.

For increased performance, the caBIG dotNET Server uses an internal cache that is synced with the caGRID Index Service every 24hrs (since each synchronization takes a few minutes).

Returns

ArrayList of Strings.  Each string is a URL to a DataService.

See

get_caBIGDataService

ArrayList get_AllConceptsAvailable()

Returns a list of ConceptCodes of all DataServices.  This describes what data is exposed as caBIG DataServices.  For example if there is data available on caBIG that is described with the ‘Prostate’ concept-code, that concept-code will be returned in this list.

The caBIG dotNET server constructs a list of all available concepts internally using a cache updated along with the get_URLs2AllDataServices internal cache.

There is no corresponding function available in the caGRID Java API.

Returns

ArrayList of ConceptCode strings.  Each ConceptCode is a unique identifier of a caBIG Concept registered in the EVS (http://evs.nci.nih.gov/).

See

get_ConceptElement, get_Concepts_caBIGDataService_caBIGDomainObject

ArrayList get_Concepts_caBIGDataService_caBIGDomainObject( String  ConceptCode )

Given a ConceptCode, returns a list of DomainObjects that expose data described by this concept.  For example, if there is data available on caBIG that is described with the ‘Prostate’ concept-code and you call this method with the Prostate concept-code it will return the DomainObject identifier pointing to where this data is available.

The caBIG dotNET server constructs an internal cache linking ConceptCodes to DomainObjects that is updated along with the get_URLs2AllDataServices internal cache.

There is no corresponding function available in the caGRID Java API.

Parameters

Returns

String encoding a DomainObject identifier.

See

get_caBIGDomainObject

caBIGDataService get_caBIGDataService( String  DataService_URL )

Given a caBIG DataService URL (Grid Service Handle), returns generic meta-data information about the DataService including service name, description, address, and contact email.  This meta-data is entered by the DataService owner when the Service is registered with the caGRID Index Service.

Parameters

Returns

caBIGDataService object storing the service’s meta-data.

See

get_caBIGDomainObjects

ArrayList get_caBIGDomainObjects( String  DataService_URL )

Given a caBIG DataService URL (Grid Service Handle), returns an ArrayList of caBIG DomainObject Identifiers. caBIG DomainObjects are caGRID standard data-service meta-data -- descriptions of what data this data-service exposes.

Parameters

Returns

ArrayList of strings.  Each string is an caBIG domain object identifier.

See

get_caBIGDomainObject

caBIGDomainObject get_caBIGDomainObject( String  DomainObject_ID )

Given a caBIG DomainObject Identifier returns a caBIGDomainObject.

Parameters

Returns

caBIGDomainObject returning some of the DomainObject meta-data.

See

get_caBIGDomainObject_fullName

caBIGDomainObject_fullName get_caBIGDomainObject_fullName(     String  DomainObject_ID )

Given a caBIG DomainObject Identifier, returns a caBIGDomainObject_fullName object.  The reason that caBIGDomainObject and caBIGDomainObject_fullName are indepednent classes is due to our efforts to follow as closely as possible the caGRID Java API.

Parameters

Returns

caBIGDomainObject_fullname returning DomainObject meta-data.

ArrayList get_DomainObjectAttributes( String  DomainObject_ID )

Given a caBIG DomainObject Identifier, returns a list of strings where each string is a Object’s Attribute ID.

Parameters

Returns

ArrayList of strings.  Each string is an caBIG DomainObject Attribute identifier.

caBIGDomainObject_attribute get_DomainObjectAttribute(     String  DomainObjectAttribute_ID )

Given a caBIG DomainObjectAttribute Identifier, returns a caBIGDomainObject_attribute.  Object Attributes are conceputally similar to structure in C -- they have a name (e.g. gene), a type (e.g. string, float), a corresponding ConceptCode and a ValueDomain.

Parameters

Returns

caBIGDomainObject_attribute returning DomainObjectAttribute information.

caBIGDomainObject_attribute_valueDomain get_DomainObjectAttributeValue(     String  DomainObjectAttribute_ID )

Given a caBIG DomainObjectAttribute Identifier, returns a caBIGDomainObject_attribute_valueDomain.  A critical notion in the caBIG metadata model is that “any concept represented by a data element must have an explicit definition that is independent of any particular representation”.  In order to achieve this in the model, the ISO/IEC 11179 standard specifies a ConceptDomain which is a set of all indended meanings for the possible values of an associated DataElementConcept and the ValueDomain is a set of accepted representations for these meanings.  See: https://cabig.nci.nih.gov- /guidelines_documentation- /caGRIDWhitepaper.pdf

Parameters

Returns

caBIGDomainObject_attribute_valueDomain returning DomainObjectAttribute information.

See

get_DomainObjectConcepts

ArrayList get_DomainObjectConcepts( String  DomainObject_ID )

Given a caBIG DomainObject Identifier, returns a list of strings where each string is a Object’s ConceptElements ID.  In the caBIG data-model, each ConceptElement has a corresponding ValueDomain.

Parameters

Returns

ArrayList of strings.  Each string is an caBIG ConceptElement identifier.

See

get_DomainObjectConcepts

caBIGConceptElement get_ConceptElement( String  ConceptCode )

Given a caBIG ConceptElement Identifier (“ConceptCode”) returns a caBIGConceptElement.

Parameters

Returns

caBIGConceptElement containing a concept’s definition and other meta-data.