Amend WorkspaceProperty so that it can hold a pointer to a WorkspaceGroup

[mantid-builder]

Original Reporter: Russell Taylor

At present, WorkspaceProperty cannot generally hold or return the pointer to a WorkspaceGroup because it holds that pointer (in PropertyWithValue) as the WorkspaceProperty template type. This is usually MatrixWorkspace or a subtype, and WorkspaceGroup does not subclass MatrixWorkspace. Note that this template type also plays a role in validating input workspaces.

Because of this, in order to get hold of the pointer you have to go off to the ADS. This imposes a number of restrictions on us - for example, you can't pass a group to a sub-algorithm.

We need to find a way of holding a base Workspace pointer in a WorkspaceProperty. I think that ideally this should not change the interface of WorkspaceProperty, in particular the template type as this would impact just about every single algorithm.

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Keywords: Core

[mantid-builder]

This issue was originally trac ticket 8772