specify an API to allow a user to create an index on a user-managed table

[pdowler]

Part of the 1.2 update is to enable users to create tables via a VOSI-tables endpoint. For tables of moderate size and up, users may want to create an index on the table.

This would be an async operation because it could take an undetermined long amount of time, there is no output other than success or fail (final job phase), and services may want to constrain or control the number of such operations running in parallel (and hence queue them in some way). UWS supports all these things.

Minimally, the user would need to specify a table name and column name to index. Optionally, they could request a unique index on most but not all column data types.

Multi-column indices?

Drop index API?

Main question: Does it make sense for this to be in VOSI (with create table) or does it belong in TAP? I can think about combining the full tables endpoint support in another kind of tabular data service (maybe SIAv2) and then wanting to include create index... it seems possible that someone could use this API feature outside of TAP.

[brianmajor]

My 2c: I feel like all the table functions (including indexing) should be in one place. Otherwise the specs become difficult to comprehend. I also feel like they could a dal-support spec rather than a ivoa-support spec, unless I'm not completely seeing the dependencies. Perhaps there's one on registry...

[pdowler]

I agree that "all tables stuff together" is the most clear.

As for which WG, that's not especially important to the target audience. DAL tends to have astronomy-specific details show up and this (so far) has nothing to do with astronomy other than the dependencies that encompass "payloads" (VODataService for tableset and table and VOTable). I think that's a normal "service API depends on model and format" thing.

If anything, TAP is largely agnostic about content and is only astronomy specific because of ADQL and DALI xtypes that can be used... but it would be painful to write a TAP spec where all that was in the optional extensibility part.

[pdowler]

draft solution for discussion: #9