Unnamed group mixin improvements

[ehennestad]

Motivation

Background — PR #705 added matnwb.mixin.HasUnnamedGroups, a convenience layer that lets you add, dot-access, and neatly display the members of a container's unnamed subgroup (e.g. ProcessingModule) instead of going through the raw types.untyped.Set API.

Problem — For a user building a table, that convenience stopped short:

• Types whose unnamed members are datasets rather than groups — the vectordata columns of a DynamicTable, the baseimage set of an Images — still exposed a bare [1×1 types.untyped.Set] property with no add, no dot-access, and no grouped display.
• AlignedDynamicTable already grouped its own dynamictable set, but its empty-group hint pointed users at a generic add method rather than the idiomatic addColumn / addCategory.

Solution — Extend the convenience layer to unnamed datasets and add a routing hook so add() dispatches to each type's idiomatic method (DynamicTable → addColumn, AlignedDynamicTable → addCategory).

What changed

• DynamicTable and Images now expose their unnamed members through add / dot-access / grouped display instead of a raw types.untyped.Set property.
• add() routes to the type-specific method: vectordata additions go through addColumn, category additions through addCategory.
• Empty-group display hints are now type-specific — AlignedDynamicTable points at addColumn (for columns) and addCategory (for category tables) instead of a generic add.

Implementation notes

• The mixin is matnwb.mixin.HasUnnamedGroups. The generator now applies it to types with unnamed datasets (declaring GroupPropertyNames, e.g. ["vectordata"] on DynamicTable, ["baseimage"] on Images) — previously only unnamed groups qualified.
• Routing is via a protected handleUnnamedGroupAdd(groupName, name, value) hook. matnwb.neurodata.DynamicTableBase routes vectordata → addColumn; matnwb.neurodata.AlignedDynamicTableBase calls the superclass hook first, then routes category tables → addCategory.
• AlignedDynamicTable is the first type to inherit an unnamed group (vectordata, now on DynamicTable) while declaring its own (dynamictable). matnwb.neurodata.internal.collectConstantPropertiesAcrossHierarchy gathers GroupPropertyNames across the class hierarchy so both groups resolve. This logic affects no pre-existing type — the two-level case only arises once DynamicTable gains the mixin in this PR.

Examples

Example 1 — types.core.Images

image_data = randi(255, [3, 200, 200], 'uint8');  % dims: [RGB, width, height]
rgb_image = types.core.RGBImage('data', image_data, 'resolution', 70.0, 'description', 'RGB image');
image_collection = types.core.Images('description', 'A collection of images presented to the subject.');

Before — add/get go through the raw Set:

image_collection.baseimage.set('rgb_image', rgb_image);
rgb_image = image_collection.baseimage.get('rgb_image');
image_collection

image_collection = 

  Images with properties:

          baseimage: [1×1 types.untyped.Set]
        description: 'A collection of images presented to the subject.'
    order_of_images: []

After — add / dot-access, grouped display:

image_collection.add('rgb_image', rgb_image);
rgb_image = image_collection.rgb_image;
image_collection

image_collection = 

  Images with properties:

        description: 'A collection of images presented to the subject.'
    order_of_images: []

   baseimage group with 1 entry:
          rgb_image: [1×1 types.core.RGBImage]

Example 2 — types.hdmf_common.DynamicTable

dt = types.hdmf_common.DynamicTable( ...
    'description', 'my table', ...
    'ColumnA', types.hdmf_common.VectorData('description', 'a column'), ...
    'colnames', 'ColumnA')

Before — vectordata is a raw Set property:

dt = 

  DynamicTable with properties:

           colnames: {'ColumnA'}
        description: 'my table'
                 id: [1×1 types.hdmf_common.ElementIdentifiers]
    meanings_tables: [0×1 types.untyped.Set]
         vectordata: [1×1 types.untyped.Set]

After — vectordata is a group, dt.add(...) routes to addColumn:

dt = 

  DynamicTable with properties:

           colnames: {'ColumnA'}
        description: 'my table'
                 id: [1×1 types.hdmf_common.ElementIdentifiers]
    meanings_tables: [0×1 types.untyped.Set]

   vectordata group with 1 entry:
            ColumnA: [1×1 types.hdmf_common.VectorData]

Example 3 — types.hdmf_common.AlignedDynamicTable

An AlignedDynamicTable has two unnamed groups with different idiomatic add-methods.

adt = types.hdmf_common.AlignedDynamicTable('description', 'aligned', 'categories', {}, 'colnames', {})

Before — dynamictable is grouped but hints at a generic add; vectordata is a raw Set:

adt = 

  AlignedDynamicTable with properties:

         categories: ''
           colnames: ''
        description: 'aligned'
                 id: []
    meanings_tables: [0×1 types.untyped.Set]
         vectordata: [0×1 types.untyped.Set]

   dynamictable: (no entries)
    Tip: Use the 'add' method to add data objects to this group.

After — both groups shown, each with its own hint:

adt = 

  AlignedDynamicTable with properties:

         categories: ''
           colnames: ''
        description: 'aligned'
                 id: []
    meanings_tables: [0×1 types.untyped.Set]

   dynamictable: (no entries)
    Tip: Use the 'addCategory' method to add category tables.

   vectordata: (no entries)
    Tip: Use the 'addColumn' method to add column data.

How to test

% Dataset-backed unnamed group now uses the convenience interface + routing
dt = types.hdmf_common.DynamicTable(...
    'description', 't', ...
    'colnames', 'ColumnA', ...
    'ColumnA', types.hdmf_common.VectorData('description', 'a column', 'data', (10:12)'));
    
assert(isprop(dt, 'ColumnA'))                       % dot-access to the column

dt.add('ColumnB',  types.hdmf_common.VectorData('description', 'b', 'data', (1:3)'));

assert(any(strcmp(dt.colnames, 'ColumnB')))         % add() routed through addColumn

% Two-level unnamed-group hierarchy resolves both groups with type-specific hints
adt = types.hdmf_common.AlignedDynamicTable('description', 'a');
disp(adt)   % shows dynamictable (addCategory) + vectordata (addColumn) tips

Checklist

• Have you ensured the PR description clearly describes the problem and solutions?
• Have you checked to ensure that there aren't other open or previously closed Pull Requests for the same change?
• If this PR fixes an issue, is the first line of the PR description fix #XX where XX is the issue number?

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 92.00000% with 8 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 95.18%. Comparing base (13b0f9a) to head (fe01dd8).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
+matnwb/+neurodata/DynamicTableBase.m	50.00%	5 Missing ⚠️
+matnwb/+neurodata/AlignedDynamicTableBase.m	78.57%	3 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #784      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   95.43%   95.18%   -0.25%     
==========================================
  Files         228      229       +1     
  Lines        8064     8124      +60     
==========================================
+ Hits         7696     7733      +37     
- Misses        368      391      +23     

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[bendichter]

Could use more motivation and examples