Batch updating column using /tables/ api should reference column using id instead of column_index

[silentninja]

Problem

Batch updating Columns using the columns field in the patch method of the /tables/{id}/ does not use id of the column rather the column to update is identified based on the position of the column objects. This is not ideal due to the following reasons:

• Similar to the column_index which is deprecated in favour of id.
• Column position could have changed resulting in updating a wrong column

Proposed solution

The following changes have to be made:

-PATCH method of the /tables/{id} api which has the following structure

{
    "columns": [
        {
            "name": "id",
            "type": "INTEGER"
        },
        {
            "name": "Center",
            "type": "TEXT"
        }
    ]
}

should be replaced with

{
    "columns": [
        {
            "id": 1, // Use column id to reference a column, rather than assuming the column based on its index.
            "name": "id",
            "type": "INTEGER"
        },
        {
            "id": 2,
            "name": "Center",
            "type": "TEXT"
        }
    ]
}

• The column id's have to be converted into attnums which can be fetched from the column object before sending the column data from the service layer to the database layer(before calling any function from the db module)

[ratika-12]

@silentninja Can I work on this?

[silentninja]

@ratika-12 This issue needs some understanding of the codebase and Django. I will confirm in a few minutes, sorry for the wait.

[silentninja]

@ratika-12 I have assigned the issue to you, thanks!

[silentninja]

@ratika-12 I have updated the proposed solution to make it easier to understand. Let me know if anything is not clear.

[kgodey]

@ratika-12 Are you still working on this task? I figured I would follow up since it's been a while and there has not been a PR yet.

[ratika-12]

@kgodey Yes I am working on this task. I will make a pr for this asap.

[silentninja]

@ratika-12 Are you still working on this task? Just wanted to follow up. Also please push your work to a draft PR, so that it is easy to follow up and suggest changes

[Anish9901]

@kgodey @silentninja Can I work on this if this is not being worked on currently by @ratika-12?

[ratika-12]

Yeah sure !!

[kgodey]

Thanks @Anish9901, assigned to you. And thanks for the update @ratika-12.

[Anish9901]

The column id's have to be converted into attnums which can be fetched from the column object before sending the column data from the service layer to the database layer(before calling any function from the db module)

@silentninja Does the attnums have to be passed as a list of attnums to a db layer function or does the id in validated_data is needed to be replaced with its corresponding attnum?

[silentninja]

id in validated_data is needed to be replaced with its corresponding attnum?

This should be the preferred option db layer should not know about the Django model fields like id