[Gramps-devel] Advanced Person selection (maybe for SOC'06)

[Joachim B. <ma...@jo...>]

Hi,

a idea I've been carrying around for a while now, and maybe it's an idea
for a Summer of Code 2006 project:

Sometimes, you want a relatively complex selection of persons for a
report. e.g: I want all predecessors and all descendants from person A,
with their spouses, unless they are related to person B. Currently, the
selection is limited to a few predefined options.

What I'd like to see to solve this problem is a "Domain Specific
Language" with a view set operations and a few genealogical functins.
The example above might spell out:

 (PredecessorsOf(A) and AddSpouses(DescendantsOf(A) and A) without (Relatio=
nsOf(B)

The code to parse and calculate these should actually be not too hard,
using pythons "set". Another benefit is that the existing selections
could easily interally written as one of those DSL string, which makes
adding and maintaining these easy. An entry field for such a line could
be made available under an extra option "Advanced Selection", so that
difficult requirements are made possible and simple selection stay easy.

If needed and someone writes that, one might include a DSL builder
similar to the interface OfficeSuites provide for their calulation
formulars.

Of course the syntax can be different.

A just brainstormed list of operators include:
Set operators:
	and (union)
	and also in (intersection)
	without (difference)
	all but  (complement)
Functions: (All these should take singe persons as well as sets)
	ParentsOf
	ChildrenOf
	SpouseOf
	DescendantsOf
	PredecessorsOf
	AddChildren,... (maybe a generic Add(<function>,<set>)
	...

What do you think?


Greetings,
Joachim
--=20
Joachim "nomeata" Breitner
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