Self-naming queries

Submitted on behalf of John McN @ MASS

When working in a multi-user environment, or an environment where the constructed model needs to persist beyond a short period of time, the need to name queries becomes an overhead.  Consistent naming of queries is one way in which repository owners are able to manage the set of queries, and facilitate re-use where suitable.

As a repository user, I do not want to have to name queries manually so that I am able to use a common naming standard across the repository, facilitating re-use of queries.  If I am able to identify query variables in a consistent way, it also goes some way to helping me manage variables across a repository.

As a suggestion, the following naming convention is in use at our organisation is

Find <y> From <x> Where <z>

• Query parameters are identified in parentheses ( )
• Variables are named and identified using square brackets [ ]
• Other input identified using <> eg a date or text

Additional thoughts:

It may be useful to be able to give a query a friendly name as an addition to the name specified by the software

It would be useful to get this information into a report for consumption outside of MooD

“auto number” as a system defined value would be good as it makes searching and re-using easier

Benefit is a higher consistency of query naming, resulting in a greater ability to re-use queries across the repository making it easier to build architectures / solutions in a consistent way.

Auto naming should also alert to duplicate queries