Hello All, First off, thanks to everyone who has been contributing to the almanac (<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar-api-doc">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar-api-doc</a>) directly or giving me feedback on things that need to be added or improved for accuracy. Please keep the feedback coming. Among many other additions, the Sugar Almanac now has a section on using the datastore. It includes a basic overview of the architecture as well as a bunch of entries on how to do different useful tasks with the datastore: <ul><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#Datastore_Helper_Functions">2 Datastore Helper Functions</a> <ul><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_create_a_new_datastore_object.3F">2.1 How do I create a new datastore object?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_provide_a_query_to_the_datastore.find.28.29_method_so_that_I_can_find_datastore_objects_with_a_particular_property.3F">2.2 How do I provide a query to the datastore.find() method so that I can find datastore objects with a particular property?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_delete_datastore_entries_with_a_particular_property.3F">2.3 How do I delete datastore entries with a particular property?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_get_all_the_unique_values_that_are_mapped_to_a_particular_key_in_the_datastore.3F">2.4 How do I get all the unique values that are mapped to a particular key in the datastore?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_get_command_line_access_to_the_files_in_my_DataStore.3F">2.5 How do I get command line access to the files in my DataStore?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_identify_the_different_mount_points_available_through_the_datastore_api.3F">2.6 How do I identify the different mount points available through the datastore api?</a></li> </ul> </li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#Class:_DSObject">3 Class: DSObject</a> <ul><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_create_new_metadata_entries_or_reassign_metadata_for_a_datastore_object_that_has_been_created.3F">3.1 How do I create new metadata entries or reassign metadata for a datastore object that has been created?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_save_a_simple_text_file_to_the_datastore.3F">3.2 How do I save a simple text file to the datastore?</a></li> <li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar.datastore.datastore#How_do_I_resume_an_activity_from_the_datastore_programmatically.3F">3.3 How do I resume an activity from the datastore programmatically?</a></li> </ul></li></ul> Also, for those who are experienced with writing the actual datastore code, I had the following questions that came up while trying to understand how this module works: ?? Is there a specific reason why there isn't a "set()" method in the datastore.DSMetadata class? Shouldn't people be given standard accessors and mutators to work with this code. This is especially confusing because it seems there is presently a "get()" method, but the set() method does not exist (so the abstraction is completely different based on whether you are getting or setting data). d ?? Several things that are currently documented at <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Low-level_Activity_API#Keeping_and_Resuming">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Low-level_Activity_API#Keeping_and_Resuming</a> are outdated. Specifically, it says datastore.create() returns the object_id. That's wrong, it returns the actual DSObject. Furthermore, it says there are methods called datastore.update and datastore.get_properties, but they don't exists. ?? The deletion/destruction of datastore activities seems to be a little confusing. In particular, there is a datastore.delete() method and there is also a DSObject.destroy() method. Why doesn't datastore.delete() simply call the destroy() method in its code so that any files associated with the deleted datastore object are also removed. Given that a warning is thrown telling the developer that an object is deleted without directly calling DSObject.destroy() (it is called indirectly through the __del__ method, but why not have things more explicit?), I'm not sure why this isn't just done programmatically. Is there ever a reason why one woul perform a delete() on an object without doing the functionality in DSObject.destroy() and are any of these reasons compelling enough that we should keep the delete() and destroy() methods as they are now? Other questions may come up as people work more on this documentation. In the meantime, I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on the existing work and also any answers to the questions above. Faisal