Commits on Sep 20, 2024

1. [Core] Add "library_json" setting …

   Closes OpenAssetIO#51.
   
   Presently, BAL can only be configured using a JSON library file. This
   causes several problems with the authoring of automated tests within
   host integrations:
   
   * It is difficult to single-source inputs and expected values without
     authoring a JSON file in the test case.
   * It requires additional side-car data files to accompany the tests
     which may not be desirable.
   
   So add a new setting, `"library_json"`. This allows hosts to query for
   the current internal BAL library via `settings()`, and then mutate it
   and update BAL via a re-`initialize()`.
   
   The JSON must be passed from/to the manager in serialised form, since
   the settings dictionary must be coerced to/from a (C++)
   `InfoDictionary`, which is a simple key-value map, rather than an
   arbitrarily nested dictionary.
   
   In addition, calculated `"variables"` (e.g. `"bal_library_dir_url"`)
   cannot be provided when the library is given as a JSON string, since
   they are based on the location of the `library_path`.
   
   If both `library_path` and `library_json` are provided, then
   `library_json` takes precedence. This allows a JSON library file to be
   provided initially, then the library mutated during test cases.
   
   Recall that the OpenAssetIO `initialize` method can accept partial
   settings updates, meaning the manager retains any previous settings that
   are not explicitly overridden in the new settings dict. However, this
   does not apply to the special `library_json` setting here. This is a bit
   of an abuse for convenience. E.g. if we re-initialize with an empty
   settings dict, the initialization process falls back to using the
   previously-set `library_path` (if available) and resets the library to
   match the file.
   
   This compromise is somewhat justified by analogy to current behaviour
   when BAL is re-initialised after entities have been published. In this
   case the new entities only exist in memory, and are lost when
   re-initialising, since the library JSON file is re-read and overwrites
   any changes. This is similar to how the `library_json` changes are lost
   by default when re-initializing.
   
   Signed-off-by: David Feltell <[email protected]>

   

   feltech committed Sep 20, 2024
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