Views

Tom Yu

2026-01-23

Source: vignettes/views.Rmd

Views

A view is a view of all entities (File, Folder, Project, Table, Docker Repository, View) within one or more Projects or Folders. Views can:

  • Provide a way of isolating or linking data based on similarities
  • Provide the ability to link entities together by their annotations
  • Allow view/editing entities attributes in bulk
  • Allow entities to be easily searched and queried

Preliminaries:

library(reticulate)
library(synapser)
## 
## TERMS OF USE NOTICE:
##   When using Synapse, remember that the terms and conditions of use require that you:
##   1) Attribute data contributors when discussing these data or results from these data.
##   2) Not discriminate, identify, or recontact individuals or groups represented by the data.
##   3) Use and contribute only data de-identified to HIPAA standards.
##   4) Redistribute data only under these same terms of use.
syn <- reticulate::import("synapseclient")
EntityViewType <- syn$EntityViewType
synLogin()
## NULL
# Create a new project
# use hex_digits to generate random string
hex_digits <- c(as.character(0:9), letters[1:6])
projectName <- sprintf("My unique project %s", paste0(sample(hex_digits, 32, replace = TRUE), collapse = ""))
project <- Project(projectName)
project <- synStore(project)

# Create some files
filePath <- tempfile()
connection <- file(filePath)
writeChar("this is the content of the first file", connection, eos = NULL)
close(connection)
file <- File(path = filePath, parent = project)
# Add some annotations
file$annotations = list(contributor = "UW", rank = "X")
file <- synStore(file)

filePath2 <- tempfile()
connection2 <- file(filePath2)
writeChar("this is the content of the second file", connection, eos = NULL)
close(connection2)
file2 <- File(path = filePath2, parent = project)
file2$annotations = list(contributor = "UW", rank = "X")
file2 <- synStore(file2)

Creating a View:

view <- EntityViewSchema(name = "my first file view",
                         columns = c(
                           Column(name = "contributor", columnType = "STRING"),
                           Column(name = "class", columnType = "STRING"),
                           Column(name = "rank", columnType = "STRING"),
                           Column(name = "string_list", columnType = "STRING_LIST")),
                         parent = project$properties$id,
                         scopes = project$properties$id,
                         includeEntityTypes = c(EntityViewType$FILE, EntityViewType$FOLDER),
                         add_default_columns = TRUE)

view <- synStore(view)

We support the following entity type in a View:

EntityViewType
## <enum 'EntityViewType'>

To see the content of your newly created View, use synTableQuery():

queryResults <- synTableQuery(sprintf("select * from %s", view$properties$id))
data <- as.data.frame(queryResults)
data
##     ROW_ID ROW_VERSION                             ROW_ETAG          id
## 1 72389606           1 cc42136a-8fba-4a41-b889-cc9eab80dd00 syn72389606
## 2 72389607           1 8e927394-8505-405e-89e8-257255b3b357 syn72389607
##                name description           createdOn createdBy
## 1 file14104665426bb        <NA> 2026-01-24 01:00:36   3434599
## 2 file141041ebaf379        <NA> 2026-01-24 01:00:38   3434599
##                                   etag          modifiedOn modifiedBy
## 1 cc42136a-8fba-4a41-b889-cc9eab80dd00 2026-01-24 01:00:36    3434599
## 2 8e927394-8505-405e-89e8-257255b3b357 2026-01-24 01:00:38    3434599
##                                                                   path type
## 1 My unique project c6be45eee35844e7ec1d6ada44bc15ee/file14104665426bb file
## 2 My unique project c6be45eee35844e7ec1d6ada44bc15ee/file141041ebaf379 file
##   currentVersion    parentId benefactorId   projectId dataFileHandleId
## 1              1 syn72389605  syn72389605 syn72389605        167324809
## 2              1 syn72389605  syn72389605 syn72389605        167324812
##        dataFileName dataFileSizeBytes                   dataFileMD5Hex
## 1 file14104665426bb                37 47dfe7f5eaa49a5413c7b79b67ab9c43
## 2 file141041ebaf379                38 ba01e01b9e3ffea3ebef95efa62998b0
##                               dataFileConcreteType        dataFileBucket
## 1 org.sagebionetworks.repo.model.file.S3FileHandle proddata.sagebase.org
## 2 org.sagebionetworks.repo.model.file.S3FileHandle proddata.sagebase.org
##                                                      dataFileKey contributor
## 1 3434599/6133df6b-27bd-470a-8258-650788e26051/file14104665426bb          UW
## 2 3434599/a5c9a2e1-e011-41bd-9233-d05c7eeb06c5/file141041ebaf379          UW
##   class rank string_list
## 1  <NA>    X        <NA>
## 2  <NA>    X        <NA>

Updating Annotations using View

To update ‘class’ and ‘string_list’ annotations for all files in the view, simply update the view:

data["class"] <- list(c("V", "VI"))
# update string_list annotation
string_list_values <- list(list("a,b,c"), list("d,e,f"))
data["string_list"] <- sapply(string_list_values, function(x) rjson::toJSON(x))
synStore(Table(view$properties$id, data))

The change in annotations is reflected in synGetAnnotations():

synGetAnnotations(file2$properties$id)

A unique etag is associated with every file that updates when changes are made to a file, including the contents, annotations, or metadata. Any updates pushed to Synapse will change an object’s etag.

data$etag

There may be cases where you want to update the annotations on a subset of files in a view. In order to preserve the etag, and thus the file history, you will need to store only the rows that have been modified.

data$contributor[1] <- c("Sage Bionetworks")
synStore(Table(view$properties$id, data[1,]))
## <synapseclient.table.CsvFileTable object at 0x132f094e0>

Update View’s Content

A view can contain different types of entity. To change the types of entity that will show up in a view:

view <- synGet(view$properties$id)
view$set_entity_types(list(EntityViewType$FILE))

A View is a Table. Please visit Tables vignettes to see how to change schema, update content, and other operations that can be done on View.

synDelete(project)
## NULL