...
So, what to do when there is no data to satisfy a mandatory method? That all depends on what it means to the OSID Provider.
Let's use osid.org.resource.ResourceRelationship as an example and try to pretend absolutely no data exists in a database used by an OSID Resource Provider. This ResourceRelationship is broken, but it demonstrates how to be compliant with the specification.
| Method | Return Syntax | Return Value or Error | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| getId() | osid.id.Id | UnknownId | This is an implementation of osid.id.Id that identifies "I don't know." However, since every OsidObject is uniquely identified by its Id, there can only be one of these. One should be able to: ResourceRelationshipLookupSession.getResourceRelationship(brokenResourceRelationship.getId()) If that works, then all is well as far as the OSIDs are concerned. But you have serious design issues if you can't figure out the identifier from your data store. |
| isCurrent() | boolean | false | this is connected to the nature of the implementation. Unless it is a real-time implementation where the information is current, the answer is always false. |
| getRecordTypes() | osid.type.TypeList | EmptyTypeList | an osid.type.TypeList with no Types |
| hasRecordType(osid.type.Type) | boolean | false | always false if getRecordTypes() is empty |
| getProperties() | osid.PropertyList | empty list | an osid.PropertyList with no properties |
| getPropertiesByRecordType(osid.type.Type) | osid.PropertyList | UNSUPPORTED | getRecordTypes() is empty |
| getDisplayName | osid.locale.DisplayText | EmptyDisplayText | An osid.locale.DisplayText with an empty string. |
| getDescription | osid.locale.DisplayText | EmptyDisplayText | An osid.locale.DisplayText with an empty string. |
| getGenusType | osid.type.Type | UnknownType | An osid.type.Type that identifies nothing. |
| isOfGenusType | boolean | true if the given Type matches getGenusType() | |
| hasEndReason() | boolean | false | |
| getEndReasonId() | osid.id.Id | ILLEGAL_STATE | the end reason state is only available if hasEndReason is true |
| getEndReason() | osid.process.State | ILLEGAL_STATE | the end reason state is only available if hasEndReason is true |
| getSourceResourceId() | osid.id.Id | UnknownResource.getId() | we don't know what this is, so let's make up a Resource and return that |
| getSourceResource() | osid.resource.Resource | UnknownResource | |
| getDestinationResourceId() | osid.id.Id | UnknownResource.getId() | |
| getDestinationResource() | osid.resource.Resource | UnknownResource() | |
| getResourceRelationshipRecord(osid.type.Type) | osid.resource.records.ResourceRelationshipRecord | UNSUPPORTED | getRecordTypes() is empty, so we don't support any |