2009/9/1 Greg Von Kuster ghv2@psu.edu:
Hello James,
The Tabular data type does not allow for this as it would be very difficult to enforce consistency across datasets. Many tabular datasets include proper headers ( start with a "#" character ), while many do not. However, many formats sub-class Tabular, and probably the best way to do this would be to introduce support for a new datatype in your local instance that is a subclass of Tabular that provides this functionality.
Thanks, Greg. So you do think it is possible? I have tried to understand the datatype by looking at: http://bitbucket.org/galaxy/galaxy-central/wiki/AddingDatatypes and reading the code. I am now very confused - when should you use init_meta and set_meta, or a MetaDataElement ?
It looks like MetaDataElements are class definitions, so to what extent can you change metadata on an instance?