Add table format for class object output

[KSchopmeyer]

DISCUSSION: Looking for ideas here

Today we can output instances and qualifier decls in a table format where the columns are rows but not classes. It might be logical to have a table format for classes.

This could be used to see what properties occur in which classes in a hiearchy.

This has a couple of issues to be resolved:

1. What would we do with qualifiers since they are a key part of each property and also of the class.

2. With classes the default value of most properties is Null so it would be an almost empty table. Therefore it might make sense to do something different but I am not sure what yet.

QUESTION: What would goals be for displaying classes in a table format.

1. Display a single class in something more easily readable on the console than MOF. This could include things like the addition of properties in subclasses, NOTE: From note below that since the class is really fairly complex it will be difficult to do this with a single table, especially on the console.

2. Display more information on the relations between classes than is in the tree. Note sure this one applies. This could include things like the addition of properties in subclasses, Note that another pr is adding display of the tree-like display of the association relations between classes and instances expanding on the associators and references operations.

3. Display common or differing characteristics between classes than you can see with things like Enumerate. This could show the changing functionality in a tree of classes, for example.

[KSchopmeyer]

The class is sufficiently complex that it is probably impossible to express a class or a group of classes as a single table.

DMTF does represent a single class as table in html . The DMTF actually presents the class HTML as a group of items described below some of which are tables.. An example is at: See Example

1. Title that defines the name and superclass name

2. Class Description ( the value of the class Description qualifier)

3. Class hierarchy (effectively pywbemcli class tree diagram showing superclasses

4. Direct subclasses

5. Class Qualifiers
   Table with 3 columns
   Name
   DataType
   Value

6. Class Properties
   Table withmultiple rows
   i. Name
   ii. DataType
   iii. Default Value
   iv. Qualifiers consisting of
   a. Name
   b DataType
   c Value

7. Inherited Properties
   Table with 3 rows:
   i. Name
   ii. Data Type
   iii. Class Origin (hyperlink to Class Origin)

8. Association Referneces (If this is an association)
   If this is an association shows table with 3 rows
   Name
   Class Origin
   Reference Class

9. Class Methods: Consists of two subtables for each method
   Note: There is a line that defines the Method name and return type followed by the
   tables.

i Method Qualifiers
ii. Method Parameters

10. Inherited Class Methods If there are any)
    Table with 3 rows
    i. Name
    ii. Return Type
    iii. Class Origin (yhperlink)

[KSchopmeyer]

What is clear from this is that it is impossible to represent all of the characteristics of a class as a single simple table. It looks like we would need to present this as multiple tables (qualifiers, properties, methods). Note that we do not need to implement the inherited properties/methods as separate tables but with the table for each type.

However, while this works for a single getclass, I am still not sure what we do with enumerate since that would be a series of tables.

[KSchopmeyer]

We agreed not to do this in version 0.6.0 but future version beyond that