Sungear HTTP interface

Sungear can both receive information from and send information to web-based applications. This information is in the form of name-value pairs (NVPs) that are passed to and from Sungear.

Input NVPs are taken from the query string used to open the Sungear applet. Any attribute used by Sungear can be passed as a query string NVP. The most relevant ones for users are:

• data_url: If this NVP is present, Sungear will assume that data_url specifies the location (properly escaped) of the file it should open upon starting.
• species: The species of the data file given by data_url, which must be a recognizable Sungear species.
• export_url: If this NVP is present, Sungear's data export functionality (from the groups list) will be enabled. All data will be sent to the URL specified by export_url as a form POST.
• export_*: Additional parameters to be sent back to the server with the form POST can be specified as query string NVPs starting with the string "export_". These parameters will be stripped of the "export_" prefix as sent be to the server. For example, the query string NVP export_cmd=addGroup will be sent with the form post as cmd=addGroup.

Output NVPs in the form post consist of a list of groups, a list of genes, and any extra NVPs supplied by the user with the prefix of export_ (see above). For groups and gene data, the separator character is the pipe (|) character. The exact format of the group list and gene lists is as follows:

• groups=group1|group2|...: a pipe-separated list of the groups being sent.
• group1=gene1|gene2|...: a pipe-separated list of the genes belonging to a group. One such list is send for each of the groups in the groups list.

Sungear also expects a response to the form POST. The response can be an empty page, but there must be data available for Sungear to read. The response can also optionally contain the following NVPs:

• url: If Sungear is being run as an applet, it will display the contents of this URL after a form submission. By default, the applet will be replaced by the new URL.
• target: An optional tag that specifies the target browser frame for the url.

An example form reply would look like this: url=/sungear/done.html&target=status This would cause Sungear to display the local URL /sungear/done.html in the window or frame named status.