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Document a feature: update() removes web_data

Marek Szuba requested to merge github/fork/wbazant/patch-1 into master

Created by: wbazant

Description

I call update() to populate analysis descriptions, from a script ensembl_genomes/eg-pipelines/scripts/production_db/analysis_desc_from_prod.pl. I found this when I was searching why analysis_description.web_data wasn't populated in WormBase ParaSite. Ensembl probably populates analysis_description.web_data differently, and has it working.

As far as I see the code has been like that for a long time (2 years?), and there's some special behaviour and disclaimers about this field which I don't understand. I also don't really understand the consequences of making the column populated again. So I'm calling it a feature instead of a bug.

@nerdstrike you might know what to do with it!

Use case

Tell people about the change, focus some eyes on the issue and see if it's a problem. If it's not a problem, document the current behaviour (calling update() wipes the web_data field)

Benefits

More complete test suites are better

Possible Drawbacks

The test suite will run longer

Testing

I have ran this unit test with and without the change, and both pass.

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