Object Types

Sub-classing objects

In your data modeling, you may find that you want to define an object class that inherits all properties from another. For example, you might have a generic c_assessment class with properties like c_patient and more specific classes like c_blood_test that has all the properties of c_assessment but also a set of more specific properties like c_blood_type.

To create an object type, you simply add the object type definitions into the objectTypes array of an object's definition. These types will inherit all the properties from the super-class (or super-type).

The properties that define an object type are as follows:

Object Type Properties

Name	Type	Description
name	String	The API name for the object type
label	String	The human readable label for the object type
properties	Property Definition Array	The array of property definitions for properties specific to this object type

Once an object type is defined, the type property becomes required when creating instances of the object. The type property is populated with the name of the object type you are creating.

Examples

In this example, we've created the object class c_assessment and set the proper ACL's. We've also added a property to this object that all of this object's types will share: c_patient. This is because all assessments will be made on a particular patient, no matter what kind of assessment it is.

Request

GET /objects/5951719d514ef101000216cf

Assessment Object Definition

You'll notice that the objectTypes value in the JSON result above is an empty array. We're going to add a c_blood_test object type to this array.

Request

POST /objects/5951719d514ef101000216cf/objectTypes

Object Type Request Body

Now, the objectTypes array contains the c_blood_test definition we just created.

Request

GET /objects/5951719d514ef101000216cf/objectTypes

objectTypes array

We can now create a c_assessment object instance of type c_blood_test:

Request

POST /c_assessments

Request Body

The resulting instance of c_assessment is of type: c_blood_test and contains both the base property of c_patient and the c_blood_test type property c_blood_type.Request

Result

{
    "_id": "59517718cfc40501006da501",
    "access": 7,
    "c_blood_type": "Type A",
    "c_patient": {
        "_id": "5771495a1d0c03a53ce83f1a",
        "object": "account",
        "path": "/accounts/5771495a1d0c03a53ce83f1a"
    },
    "created": "2017-06-26T21:05:28.068Z",
    "creator": {
        "_id": "5771495a1d0c03a53ce83f1a",
        "object": "account",
        "path": "/accounts/5771495a1d0c03a53ce83f1a"
    },
    "favorite": false,
    "object": "c_assessment",
    "owner": {
        "_id": "5771495a1d0c03a53ce83f1a",
        "object": "account",
        "path": "/accounts/5771495a1d0c03a53ce83f1a"
    },
    "shared": false,
    "type": "c_blood_test"
}