A view is a type of table. Views display rows and columns of information, and they can be shared and queried just like a table. Unlike tables, views do not store data. Instead, views are essentially queries of other data already in Synapse. They allow you to see groups of files, tables, projects, or submissions and any associated metadata about those items at a glance. You can define the . The scope of a view to include the defines what items that you want to group together. For example, you can set the scope to be multiple projects or a small number of folders.
You can use a view to:
Search and query many files, tables, projects, and submissions at once
View and edit file or table metadata in bulk
Group or link files, tables, projects, or submissions together by their annotations
This guide explains how to create views from the web client. Instructions for creating views using the programmatic clients can be found in the Python docs and the R docs.
What Is a Schema?
A schema is the structure of your dataset. In a view, a schema defines the structure by specifying the column names. A schema may also define the values or types of data allowed in each column.
You can define table columns to contain common data types like text, numbers, and dates, or you can define columns to include references to other Synapse objects, like files and folders. Synapse currently supports several kinds of text columns (STRING, LARGE TEXT), dates (as TIMESTAMP), a variety of numeric columns (INTEGER, DOUBLE), and various Synapse identifiers (ENTITYID, USER). For a complete list of column types and definitions, see the REST docs on columnTypes.
Create a File View
A file view lists all files or tables within one or more folders or projects. To create a file view, navigate to the project where you would like to create the view. The project you choose does not have to contain the items you are including in your file view. Navigate into the Tables tab and select Add File View in from the Tables Tools menu. You will select the files of interest by defining the scope, which is the project(s) and folders that contain your files. File views can also contain tables or folders; you can choose which kinds of items you would like to include during the setup process. The scope of a file view can have a maximum of 20,000 folders or sub-folders.
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A project view lists all projects you’ve added to the view. To create a project view, select the project in which you would like to create the view. Navigate into the Tables tab and select Add Project View from the Tables Tools menu. You will select the projects of interest by defining the scope as above for file views. The only notable difference between creating a project view and a file view is that for project views, there is a 1:1 relationship between the projects you select in your scope and the projects that are shown in the view. The scope of a project view can have a maximum of 20,000 projects.
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A view can be queried like any other table in Synapse. See Search Searching Tables and Views for more information.
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Views can be used to update annotations for many files or tables at once. To add new annotations, see the Annotations and Queries article. To update other metadata in bulk, such as Provenance, see the Upload and Download Data in Bulk Processing article.
For example, if you would like to use the Python client to update the annotation “dogSays:bark” to “dogSays:woof” for every file in a file view with the synID syn12345678, you can use:
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