Interactive Attach

Useful Terms

acceptor: the text window into which you are importing data.
donor: the object or class from which you are importing data

Attach allows you to move information from one object or group of objects into the for another object. This is useful for viewing convenience, printing, and dumping. Attach is complex but extremely powerful; we recommend learning about it via experimentation. It is still being developed and will probably be extended to include additional features.

Menu items:

Attach: invokes tag chooser corresponding to selected donor(s); you must pick branch from donor to import into acceptor. The tag chooser is a blocking window; you must respond to it with a selection or CANCEL to continue.
Detach: remove attached data from selected donor; you must collapse and expand the relevant tag in the acceptor for this to take effect. See help for text windows for an explanation of collapse/expand.
Attach Recursively: invokes tag chooser corresponding to selected donor; you must pick branch from donor to import into acceptor. Recursively means donor refers to a donor which refers to a donor... and you want to import this entire data chain into the acceptor.
Help on attach: brings up this help.

Making an attachment

1. First you must choose a single or group of donor objects from which to retrieve information. Do this by selecting (clicking once) on a tag or object in the acceptor window. If you click a tag, ACE looks to the right to determing the object or objects in the donor class(es). Note that data in a text window is arranged in a branching structure which functions as a hierarchical outline. A tag identifies all objects "under" it as potential donors.

If a tag is flanked on the right by another tag, ACEDB continues rightward until it finds a valid object. It must find the first valid object on the first line or else the attachment will fail with an error.
If additional data lies to the right of the donor object in the acceptor, the attachment operation fails for that object.

2. Second, you must choose which part of the donor to retrieve.

Select "Attach" from the pull-down "Attach..." menu (see below for "Attach Recursively"). A tag chooser window will appear. The tag chooser shows the layout of the donor class. In cases where a tag identifies donors from different classes, the tag chooser shows the class for the donor on the same line as the tag.

Again, data in objects is arranged in a branching structure which functions as a hierarchical outline. To identify a branch or sub-branch to import, double-click on a tag or field. Choose a tag if you want to import the branch it defines, i.e., the tag itself as well as everything "indented" under that tag.

Choosing a field gives a different effect. ACEDB identifies the branch that contains the field by looking leftward until it encounters a tag. But instead of importing the entire branch, only the part of the branch that contains the field of interest is taken.

The tag chooser will only show a single class. However, if your donors come from different classes, ACEDB will silently examine them to see if they contain a branch like the one you chose in the tag-chooser.

As soon as you double-click, the tag chooser will disappear.

3. Third, the donor you originally selected will now be collapsed (indicated by arrow and number). Uncollapse it by clicking once to see the attached information. See help for text windows for more information about collapse/expand.

you can now choose other donors in the acceptor and import information from them by repeating the steps above. Donors may be chosen from newly attached information.
no data appears if the donor object(s) lack the information you are trying to import.
no data appears for a donor if it is flanked on the right in the acceptor by other information.

Detatch

To remove imported information, pick the donor in the acceptor window and select the "Detach" item from the menu. The information will still be visible in the acceptor until you collapse and expand the donor by clicking on it. If a text window opens instead, that's because you clicked on an object name. Try collapsing and expanding a tag to the donor's left instead.

Attach Recursively

In some cases objects are linked together in a recursive fashion. For example, in a cell lineage a particular cell may have one or more daughters, each of which may have daughters, and so on. A recursive attachment allows you to follow these links and import information from them into the same acceptor window.

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last edited: July 1994