Allow null references as data (#37)

* support null references as data * fix pep8 violation
hdmf-dev · Apr 17, 2019 · ba748b9 · ba748b9
1 parent 7920c5f
commit ba748b9
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Showing 2 changed files with 8 additions and 2 deletions.
diff --git a/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py b/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
@@ -884,12 +884,15 @@ def __list_fill__(cls, parent, name, data, options=None):
             raise e
         return dset
 
-    @docval({'name': 'container', 'type': (Builder, Container, ReferenceBuilder), 'doc': 'the object to reference'},
+    @docval({'name': 'container', 'type': (Builder, Container, ReferenceBuilder), 'doc': 'the object to reference',
+             'default': None},
             {'name': 'region', 'type': (slice, list, tuple), 'doc': 'the region reference indexing object',
              'default': None},
             returns='the reference', rtype=Reference)
     def __get_ref(self, **kwargs):
         container, region = getargs('container', 'region', kwargs)
+        if container is None:
+            return None
         if isinstance(container, Builder):
             if isinstance(container, LinkBuilder):
                 builder = container.target_builder

diff --git a/src/hdmf/build/map.py b/src/hdmf/build/map.py
@@ -795,7 +795,10 @@ def build(self, **kwargs):
                 if self.__spec.dtype is None and self.__is_reftype(container.data):
                     bldr_data = list()
                     for d in container.data:
-                        bldr_data.append(ReferenceBuilder(manager.build(d)))
+                        if d is None:
+                            bldr_data.append(None)
+                        else:
+                            bldr_data.append(ReferenceBuilder(manager.build(d)))
                     builder = DatasetBuilder(name, bldr_data, parent=parent, source=source,
                                              dtype='object')
                 else: