Associations and Rules

Terminology

As has been described, an Association is a Python dict or list that is a list of things that belong together and are created by association rules. However, as will be described, the association rules are Python classes which inherit from the Association class.

Associations created from these rule classes, refered to as just rules, have the type of the class they are created from and have all the methods and attributes of those classes. Such instances are used to populate the created associations with new members and check the validity of said associations.

However, once an association has been saved, or serialized, through the Association.dump method, then reload through the corresponding Association.load method, the restored association is only the basic list or dict. The whole instance of the originating association is not serialized with the basic membership information.

This relationship is shown in the following figure:

Figure 1: Rule vs. Association Relationship

Note About Loading

Association.load will only validate the incoming data against whatever schema or other validation checks the particular subclass calls for. The generally preferred method for loading an association is through the jwst.associations.load_asn() function.

Rules

Association rules are Python classes which must inherit from the Association base class. What the rules do and what they create are completely up to the rules themselves. Except for a few core methods, the only other requirement is that any instance of an association rule must behave as the association it creates. If the association is a dict, the rule instance must behave as the dict. If the association is a list, the rule instance must behave as a list. Otherwise, any other methods and attributes the rules need for association creation may be added.

Rule Sets

In general, because a set of rules will share much the same functionality, for example how to save the association and how to decide membership, it is suggested that an intermediate set of classes be created from which the rule classes inherit. The set of rule classes which share the same base parent classes are referred to as a rule set. The JWST Level 2 and Level 3 are examples of such rule sets. The below figure demonstrates the relationships between the base Association, the defining ruleset classes, and the rule classes themselves.

Figure 2: Rule Inheritance

Where Rules Live: The AssociationRegistry

In order to be used, rules are loaded into an Association Registry. The registry is used by the generate() to produce the associations. The registry is also used by the load_asn() function to validate a potential association data against list of rules.