libSBML Python API  5.18.0
libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures Class Reference
Inheritance diagram for libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures:
[legend]

Detailed Description

multi A list of SpeciesFeature objects.

The ListOfSpeciesFeatures is a container for SpeciesFeature objects.

The various ListOf___ classes in SBML are merely containers used for organizing the main components of an SBML model. In libSBML's implementation, ListOf___ classes are derived from the intermediate utility class ListOf, which is not defined by the SBML specifications but serves as a useful programmatic construct. ListOf is itself is in turn derived from SBase, which provides all of the various ListOf___ classes with common features defined by the SBML specification, such as 'metaid' attributes and annotations.

The relationship between the lists and the rest of an SBML model is illustrated by the following (for SBML Level 2 Version 4):

SBML Level 3 Version 1 has essentially the same structure as Level 2 Version 4, depicted above, but SBML Level 3 Version 2 allows containers to contain zero or more of the relevant object, instead of requiring at least one. As such, libsbml will write out an otherwise-empty ListOf___ element that has any optional attribute set (such as 'id' or 'metaid'), that has an optional child (such as a 'notes' or 'annotation'), or that has attributes or children set from any SBML Level 3 package, whether or not the ListOf___ has any other children.

Readers may wonder about the motivations for using the ListOf___ containers in SBML. A simpler approach in XML might be to place the components all directly at the top level of the model definition. The choice made in SBML is to group them within XML elements named after ListOfClassname, in part because it helps organize the components. More importantly, the fact that the container classes are derived from SBase means that software tools can add information about the lists themselves into each list container's 'annotation'.

See also
ListOfFunctionDefinitions
ListOfUnitDefinitions
ListOfCompartmentTypes
ListOfSpeciesTypes
ListOfCompartments
ListOfSpecies
ListOfParameters
ListOfInitialAssignments
ListOfRules
ListOfConstraints
ListOfReactions
ListOfEvents
SpeciesFeature

Public Member Functions

def __init__ (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def __len__ (self)
 
def addCVTerm (self, term, newBag=False)
 Adds a copy of the given CVTerm object to this SBML object. More...
 
def addSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (self, losf)
 
def append (self, item)
 Adds an item to the end of this ListOf's list of items. More...
 
def appendAndOwn (self, disownedItem)
 Adds an item to the end of this ListOf's list of items. More...
 
def appendAnnotation (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def appendFrom (self, list)
 Adds a clone of a list of items to this ListOf's list. More...
 
def appendNotes (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def clear (self, doDelete=True)
 Removes all items in this ListOf object. More...
 
def clone (self)
 Creates and returns a deep copy of this ListOfSpeciesFeatures object. More...
 
def connectToChild (self)
 
def deleteDisabledPlugins (self, recursive=True)
 Deletes all information stored in disabled plugins. More...
 
def disablePackage (self, pkgURI, pkgPrefix)
 Disables the given SBML Level 3 package on this object. More...
 
def enablePackage (self, pkgURI, pkgPrefix, flag)
 Enables or disables the given SBML Level 3 package on this object. More...
 
def get (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def getAncestorOfType (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def getAnnotation (self, args)
 Returns the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object as a tree of XMLNode objects. More...
 
def getAnnotationString (self, args)
 Returns the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object as a character string. More...
 
def getColumn (self)
 Returns the column number where this object first appears in the XML representation of the SBML document. More...
 
def getCVTerm (self, n)
 Returns the nth CVTerm in the list of CVTerms of this SBML object. More...
 
def getCVTerms (self, args)
 Returns a list of CVTerm objects in the annotations of this SBML object. More...
 
def getDisabledPlugin (self, args)
 Returns the nth disabled plug-in object (extension interface) for an SBML Level 3 package extension. More...
 
def getElementByMetaId (self, metaid)
 Returns the first child element found with the given meta-identifier. More...
 
def getElementBySId (self, id)
 Returns the first child element found that has the given identifier. More...
 
def getElementName (self)
 Returns the XML element name of this object, which for ListOfSpeciesFeatures, is always 'listOfSpeciesFeatures'. More...
 
def getId (self)
 Returns the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object, if it has one, or the 'variable' attribute of a Rule, or the 'symbol' attribute of an InitialAssignment. More...
 
def getIdAttribute (self)
 Returns the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def getItemTypeCode (self)
 Returns the libSBML type code for the SBML objects contained in this ListOf object. More...
 
def getLevel (self)
 Returns the SBML Level of the SBMLDocument object containing this object. More...
 
def getLine (self)
 Returns the line number where this object first appears in the XML representation of the SBML document. More...
 
def getListOfAllElements (self, filter=None)
 Returns an SBaseList of all child SBase objects, including those nested to an arbitrary depth. More...
 
def getListOfAllElementsFromPlugins (self, filter=None)
 Returns a List of all child SBase objects contained in SBML package plug-ins. More...
 
def getMetaId (self)
 Returns the value of the 'metaid' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def getModel (self)
 Returns the Model object for the SBML Document in which the current object is located. More...
 
def getModelHistory (self, args)
 Returns the ModelHistory object, if any, attached to this object. More...
 
def getName (self)
 Returns the value of the 'name' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def getNamespaces (self)
 Returns a list of the XML Namespaces declared on the SBML document owning this object. More...
 
def getNotes (self, args)
 Returns the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object as a tree of XMLNode objects. More...
 
def getNotesString (self, args)
 Returns the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object as a string. More...
 
def getNumCVTerms (self)
 Returns the number of CVTerm objects in the annotations of this SBML object. More...
 
def getNumDisabledPlugins (self)
 Returns the number of disabled plug-in objects (extension interfaces) for SBML Level 3 package extensions known. More...
 
def getNumPlugins (self)
 Returns the number of plug-in objects (extenstion interfaces) for SBML Level 3 package extensions known. More...
 
def getNumSpeciesFeatures (self)
 
def getNumSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (self)
 
def getPackageCoreVersion (self)
 Returns the SBML Core Version within the SBML Level of the actual object. More...
 
def getPackageName (self)
 Returns the name of the SBML Level 3 package in which this element is defined. More...
 
def getPackageVersion (self)
 Returns the Version of the SBML Level 3 package to which this element belongs to. More...
 
def getParentSBMLObject (self, args)
 Returns the parent SBML object containing this object. More...
 
def getPlugin (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def getPrefix (self)
 Returns the XML namespace prefix of this element. More...
 
def getResourceBiologicalQualifier (self, resource)
 Returns the MIRIAM biological qualifier associated with the given resource. More...
 
def getResourceModelQualifier (self, resource)
 Returns the MIRIAM model qualifier associated with the given resource. More...
 
def getSBMLDocument (self, args)
 Returns the SBMLDocument object containing this object instance. More...
 
def getSBOTerm (self)
 Returns the integer portion of the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this object. More...
 
def getSBOTermAsURL (self)
 Returns the URL representation of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this object. More...
 
def getSBOTermID (self)
 Returns the string representation of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this object. More...
 
def getSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def getTypeCode (self)
 Returns the libSBML type code for this SBML object. More...
 
def getURI (self)
 Gets the namespace URI to which this element belongs to. More...
 
def getVersion (self)
 Returns the Version within the SBML Level of the SBMLDocument object containing this object. More...
 
def hasValidLevelVersionNamespaceCombination (self)
 Predicate returning true if this object's level/version and namespace values correspond to a valid SBML specification. More...
 
def insert (self, location, item)
 Inserts an item at a given position in this ListOf's list of items. More...
 
def insertAndOwn (self, location, disownedItem)
 Inserts an item at a given position in this ListOf's list of items. More...
 
def isPackageEnabled (self, pkgName)
 Predicate returning True if the given SBML Level 3 package is enabled with this object. More...
 
def isPackageURIEnabled (self, pkgURI)
 Predicate returning True if an SBML Level 3 package with the given URI is enabled with this object. More...
 
def isPkgEnabled (self, pkgName)
 Predicate returning True if the given SBML Level 3 package is enabled with this object. More...
 
def isPkgURIEnabled (self, pkgURI)
 Predicate returning True if an SBML Level 3 package with the given URI is enabled with this object. More...
 
def isSetAnnotation (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object's 'annotation' subelement exists and has content. More...
 
def isSetId (self)
 Predicate returning True if a call to getId() returns a non-empty string. More...
 
def isSetIdAttribute (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object's 'id' attribute is set. More...
 
def isSetMetaId (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object's 'metaid' attribute is set. More...
 
def isSetModelHistory (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object has a ModelHistory object attached to it. More...
 
def isSetName (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object's 'name' attribute is set. More...
 
def isSetNotes (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object's 'notes' subelement exists and has content. More...
 
def isSetSBOTerm (self)
 Predicate returning True if this object's 'sboTerm' attribute is set. More...
 
def isSetUserData (self)
 Predicate returning true or false depending on whether the user data of this element has been set. More...
 
def matchesRequiredSBMLNamespacesForAddition (self, args)
 Returns True if this object's set of XML namespaces are a subset of the given object's XML namespaces. More...
 
def matchesSBMLNamespaces (self, args)
 Returns True if this object's set of XML namespaces are the same as the given object's XML namespaces. More...
 
def remove (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def removeFromParentAndDelete (self)
 Removes all items in this ListOf object and deletes its properties too. More...
 
def removeSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def removeTopLevelAnnotationElement (self, args)
 Removes the top-level element within the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object with the given name and optional URI. More...
 
def renameMetaIdRefs (self, oldid, newid)
 Replaces all uses of a given meta identifier attribute value with another value. More...
 
def renameSIdRefs (self, oldid, newid)
 Replaces all uses of a given SIdRef type attribute value with another value. More...
 
def renameUnitSIdRefs (self, oldid, newid)
 Replaces all uses of a given UnitSIdRef type attribute value with another value. More...
 
def replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def setAnnotation (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def setId (self, sid)
 Sets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def setIdAttribute (self, sid)
 Sets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def setMetaId (self, metaid)
 Sets the value of the meta-identifier attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def setModelHistory (self, history)
 Sets the ModelHistory of this object. More...
 
def setName (self, name)
 Sets the value of the 'name' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def setNamespaces (self, xmlns)
 Sets the namespaces relevant of this SBML object. More...
 
def setNotes (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def setSBOTerm (self, args)
 This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept. More...
 
def size (self)
 
def toSBML (self)
 Returns a string consisting of a partial SBML corresponding to just this object. More...
 
def toXMLNode (self)
 Returns this element as an XMLNode. More...
 
def unsetAnnotation (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetCVTerms (self)
 Clears the list of CVTerm objects attached to this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetId (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetIdAttribute (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetMetaId (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'metaid' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetModelHistory (self)
 Unsets the ModelHistory object attached to this object. More...
 
def unsetName (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'name' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetNotes (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'notes' subelement of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetSBOTerm (self)
 Unsets the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this SBML object. More...
 
def unsetUserData (self)
 Unsets the user data of this element. More...
 

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.__init__ (   self,
  args 
)

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

__init__(long  level, long  version, long  pkgVersion)   ListOfSpeciesFeatures
__init__(long  level, long  version)   ListOfSpeciesFeatures
__init__(long  level)   ListOfSpeciesFeatures
__init__()   ListOfSpeciesFeatures
__init__(MultiPkgNamespaces multins)   ListOfSpeciesFeatures
__init__(ListOfSpeciesFeatures orig)   ListOfSpeciesFeatures

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
ListOfSpeciesFeatures(ListOfSpeciesFeatures orig)

Creates and returns a deep copy of this ListOfSpeciesFeatures object

Parameters
origthe MultiPkgNamespaces object

Method variant with the following signature:
ListOfSpeciesFeatures(long level = MultiExtension.getDefaultLevel(), long version = MultiExtension.getDefaultVersion(), long pkgVersion = MultiExtension.getDefaultPackageVersion())

Creates a new ListOfSpeciesFeatures with the given level, version, and package version.

Parameters
levela long integer, the SBML Level to assign to this ListOfSpeciesFeatures
versiona long integer, the SBML Version to assign to this ListOfSpeciesFeatures
pkgVersiona long integer, the SBML Multi Version to assign to this ListOfSpeciesFeatures
Note
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.

Method variant with the following signature:
ListOfSpeciesFeatures(MultiPkgNamespaces multins)

Creates a new ListOfSpeciesFeatures with the given MultiPkgNamespaces object.

Parameters
multinsthe MultiPkgNamespaces object

Member Function Documentation

def libsbml.ListOf.__len__ (   self)
inherited
__len__()   int
def libsbml.SBase.addCVTerm (   self,
  term,
  newBag = False 
)
inherited

Adds a copy of the given CVTerm object to this SBML object.

addCVTerm(CVTerm term, bool newBag)   int
addCVTerm(CVTerm term)   int
Parameters
termthe CVTerm to assign.
newBagif True, creates a new RDF bag with the same identifier as a previous bag, and if False, adds the term to an existing RDF bag with the same type of qualifier as the term being added.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
Note
Since the CV Term uses the 'metaid' attribute of the object as a reference, if the object has no 'metaid' attribute value set, then the CVTerm will not be added.
This method should be used with some caution. The fact that this method copies the object passed to it means that the caller will be left holding a physically different object instance than the one contained inside this object. Changes made to the original object instance (such as resetting attribute values) will not affect the instance in this object. In addition, the caller should make sure to free the original object if it is no longer being used, or else a memory leak will result. Please see other methods on this class (particularly a corresponding method whose name begins with the word create) for alternatives that do not lead to these issues.
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.addSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (   self,
  losf 
)
addSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(SubListOfSpeciesFeatures losf)   int
 
def libsbml.ListOf.append (   self,
  item 
)
inherited

Adds an item to the end of this ListOf's list of items.

append(SBase item)   int

This method makes a clone of the item handed to it. This means that when the ListOf object is destroyed, the original items will not be destroyed. For a method with an alternative ownership behavior, see the ListOf.appendAndOwn() method.

Parameters
itemthe item to be added to the list.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
appendAndOwn()
appendFrom()
def libsbml.ListOf.appendAndOwn (   self,
  disownedItem 
)
inherited

Adds an item to the end of this ListOf's list of items.

appendAndOwn(SBase disownedItem)   int

This method does not clone the disownedItem handed to it; instead, it assumes ownership of it. This means that when the ListOf is destroyed, the item will be destroyed along with it. For a method with an alternative ownership behavior, see the ListOf.append() method.

Parameters
disownedItemthe item to be added to the list. Will become a child of the parent list.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
append()
appendFrom()
def libsbml.SBase.appendAnnotation (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

appendAnnotation(XMLNode annotation)   int
appendAnnotation(string annotation)   int

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
appendAnnotation(XMLNode annotation)

Appends the given annotation to the 'annotation' subelement of this object.

Whereas the SBase 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Unlike SBase.setAnnotation() or SBase.setAnnotation(), this method allows other annotations to be preserved when an application adds its own data.

Parameters
annotationan XML structure that is to be copied and appended to the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getAnnotationString()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()

Method variant with the following signature:
appendAnnotation(string annotation)

Appends the given annotation to the 'annotation' subelement of this object.

Whereas the SBase 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Unlike SBase.setAnnotation() or SBase.setAnnotation(), this method allows other annotations to be preserved when an application adds its own data.

Parameters
annotationan XML string that is to be copied and appended to the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getAnnotationString()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()
def libsbml.ListOf.appendFrom (   self,
  list 
)
inherited

Adds a clone of a list of items to this ListOf's list.

appendFrom(ListOf list)   int

Note that because this clones the objects handed to it, the original items will not be destroyed when this ListOf object is destroyed.

Parameters
lista list of items to be added.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
append()
appendAndOwn()
def libsbml.SBase.appendNotes (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

appendNotes(XMLNode notes)   int
appendNotes(string notes)   int

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
appendNotes(string notes)

Appends the given notes to the 'notes' subelement of this object.

The content of the parameter notes is copied.

The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type, is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements must be XHTML 1.0. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); however, readers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

Parameters
notesan XML string that is to appended to the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getNotesString()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()

Method variant with the following signature:
appendNotes(XMLNode notes)

Appends the given notes to the 'notes' subelement of this object.

The content of notes is copied.

The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type, is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements must be XHTML 1.0. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); however, readers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

Parameters
notesan XML node structure that is to appended to the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getNotesString()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
def libsbml.ListOf.clear (   self,
  doDelete = True 
)
inherited

Removes all items in this ListOf object.

clear(bool doDelete)
clear()

If parameter doDelete is True (default), all items in this ListOf object are deleted and cleared, and thus the caller doesn't have to delete those items. Otherwise, all items are cleared only from this ListOf object; the caller is still responsible for deleting the actual items. (In the latter case, callers are advised to store pointers to all items elsewhere before calling this function.)

Parameters
doDeleteif True (default), all items are deleted and cleared. Otherwise, all items are just cleared and not deleted.
Note
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.clone (   self)

Creates and returns a deep copy of this ListOfSpeciesFeatures object.

clone()   ListOfSpeciesFeatures
Returns
a (deep) copy of this ListOfSpeciesFeatures object.
def libsbml.ListOf.connectToChild (   self)
inherited
connectToChild()
def libsbml.SBase.deleteDisabledPlugins (   self,
  recursive = True 
)
inherited

Deletes all information stored in disabled plugins.

deleteDisabledPlugins(bool recursive)
deleteDisabledPlugins()

If the plugin is re-enabled later, it will then not have any previously-stored information.

SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.
If a plugin is disabled, the package information it contains is no longer considered to be part of the SBML document for the purposes of searching the document or writing out the document. However, the information is still retained, so if the plugin is enabled again, the same information will once again be available, and will be written out to the final model.
Parameters
recursiveif True, the disabled information will be deleted also from all child elements, otherwise only from this SBase element.
See also
getNumDisabledPlugins()
def libsbml.SBase.disablePackage (   self,
  pkgURI,
  pkgPrefix 
)
inherited

Disables the given SBML Level 3 package on this object.

disablePackage(string pkgURI, string pkgPrefix)   int

This method disables the specified package on this object and other objects connected by child-parent links in the same SBMLDocument object.

An example of when this may be useful is during construction of model components when mixing existing and new models. Suppose your application read an SBML document containing a model that used the SBML Hierarchical Model Composition (“comp”) package, and extracted parts of that model in order to construct a new model in memory. The new, in-memory model will not accept a component drawn from an other SBMLDocument with different package namespace declarations. You could reconstruct the same namespaces in the in-memory model first, but as a shortcut, you could also disable the package namespace on the object being added. Here is a code example to help clarify this:

1 import sys
2 import os.path
3 from libsbml import *
4 
5 # We read an SBML L3V1 model that uses the 'comp' package.
6 
7 doc = readSBML('sbml-file-with-comp-elements.xml');
8 if doc.getNumErrors() > 0:
9  print('readSBML encountered errors while reading the file.')
10  doc.printErrors()
11  sys.exit(1)
12 
13 # We extract one of the species from the model.
14 
15 model = doc.getModel()
16 if model == None:
17  print('Unable to retrieve Model object')
18  sys.exit(1)
19 
20 s1 = model.getSpecies(0)
21 if s1 == None:
22  print('Unable to retrieve Species object')
23  sys.exit(1)
24 
25 # We construct a new model.
26 # This model does not use the 'comp' package.
27 
28 try:
29  newDoc = SBMLDocument(3, 1)
30 except ValueError:
31  print('Could not create SBMLDocument object')
32  sys.exit(1)
33 
34 newModel = newDoc.createModel()
35 if newModel == None:
36  print('Unable to create new Model object')
37  sys.exit(1)
38 
39 # The following would normally fail with an error, because
40 # addSpecies() would first check that the parent of the given
41 # object has namespaces declared, and will discover that s1
42 # does but newModel does not.
43 
44 # newModel.addSpecies(s1)
45 
46 # However, if we disable the 'comp' package on s1, then the
47 # call to addSpecies will work.
48 
49 compNS = 'http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level3/version1/comp/version1'
50 status = s1.disablePackage(compNS, 'comp')
51 if status != LIBSBML_OPERATION_SUCCESS:
52  print('Unable to disable package.')
53  sys.exit(1)
54 
55 newSpecies = newModel.addSpecies(s1) # This will work now.
56 if newSpecies == None:
57  print('Could not add Species') # (This will not happen,
58  sys.exit(1) # but always check errors.)
Parameters
pkgURIthe URI of the package.
pkgPrefixthe XML prefix of the package.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
enablePackage()
def libsbml.SBase.enablePackage (   self,
  pkgURI,
  pkgPrefix,
  flag 
)
inherited

Enables or disables the given SBML Level 3 package on this object.

enablePackage(string pkgURI, string pkgPrefix, bool flag)   int

This method enables the specified package on this object and other objects connected by child-parent links in the same SBMLDocument object. This method is the converse of SBase.disablePackage().

Parameters
pkgURIthe URI of the package.
pkgPrefixthe XML prefix of the package.
flagwhether to enable (True) or disable (False) the package.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
disablePackage()
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.get (   self,
  args 
)

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

get(long  n)   SpeciesFeature
get(string sid)   SpeciesFeature

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
get(long n)

Get a SpeciesFeature from the ListOfSpeciesFeatures.

Parameters
nthe index number of the SpeciesFeature to get.
Returns
the nth SpeciesFeature in this ListOfSpeciesFeatures. If the index n is invalid, None is returned.
See also
size()

Method variant with the following signature:
get(string sid)

Get a SpeciesFeature from the ListOfSpeciesFeatures based on its identifier.

Parameters
sida string representing the identifier of the SpeciesFeature to get.
Returns
SpeciesFeature in this ListOfSpeciesFeatures with the given id or None if no such SpeciesFeature exists.
See also
get() *
size()
def libsbml.SBase.getAncestorOfType (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

getAncestorOfType(int type, string pkgName)   SBase
getAncestorOfType(int type)   SBase

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
getAncestorOfType(int type, string pkgName = 'core')

Returns the first ancestor object that has the given SBML type code from the given package.

LibSBML attaches an identifying code to every kind of SBML object. These are known as SBML type codes. In the Python language interface for libSBML, the type codes are defined as static integer constants in the interface class libsbml. The names of the type codes all begin with the characters SBML_.

This method searches the tree of objects that are parents of this object, and returns the first one that has the given SBML type code from the given pkgName.

Parameters
typethe SBML type code of the object sought.
pkgName(optional) the short name of an SBML Level 3 package to which the sought-after object must belong.
Returns
the ancestor SBML object of this SBML object that corresponds to the given SBML object type code, or None if no ancestor exists.
Warning
The optional argument pkgName must be used for all type codes from SBML Level 3 packages. Otherwise, the function will search the 'core' namespace alone, not find any corresponding elements, and return None.
Note
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.

Method variant with the following signature:
getAncestorOfType(int type, string pkgName = 'core')

Returns the first ancestor object that has the given SBML type code from the given package.

LibSBML attaches an identifying code to every kind of SBML object. These are known as SBML type codes. In the Python language interface for libSBML, the type codes are defined as static integer constants in the interface class libsbml. The names of the type codes all begin with the characters SBML_.

This method searches the tree of objects that are parents of this object, and returns the first one that has the given SBML type code from the given pkgName.

Parameters
typethe SBML type code of the object sought.
pkgName(optional) the short name of an SBML Level 3 package to which the sought-after object must belong.
Returns
the ancestor SBML object of this SBML object that corresponds to the given SBML object type code, or None if no ancestor exists.
Warning
The optional argument pkgName must be used for all type codes from SBML Level 3 packages. Otherwise, the function will search the 'core' namespace alone, not find any corresponding elements, and return None.
Note
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.
def libsbml.SBase.getAnnotation (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object as a tree of XMLNode objects.

getAnnotation()   XMLNode
Whereas the SBML 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

The annotations returned by this method will be in XML form. LibSBML provides an object model and related interfaces for certain specific kinds of annotations, namely model history information and RDF content. See the ModelHistory, CVTerm and RDFAnnotationParser classes for more information about the facilities available.

Returns
the annotation of this SBML object as a tree of XMLNode objects.
See also
getAnnotationString()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()
def libsbml.SBase.getAnnotationString (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object as a character string.

getAnnotationString()   string
Whereas the SBML 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

The annotations returned by this method will be in string form. See the method getAnnotation() for a version that returns annotations in XML form.

Returns
the annotation of this SBML object as a character string.
See also
getAnnotation()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()
def libsbml.SBase.getColumn (   self)
inherited

Returns the column number where this object first appears in the XML representation of the SBML document.

getColumn()   long
Returns
the column number of this SBML object. If this object was created programmatically and not read from a file, this method will return the value 0.
Note
The column number for each construct in an SBML model is set upon reading the model. The accuracy of the column number depends on the correctness of the XML representation of the model, and on the particular XML parser library being used. The former limitation relates to the following problem: if the model is actually invalid XML, then the parser may not be able to interpret the data correctly and consequently may not be able to establish the real column number. The latter limitation is simply that different parsers seem to have their own accuracy limitations, and out of all the parsers supported by libSBML, none have been 100% accurate in all situations. (At this time, libSBML supports the use of libxml2, Expat and Xerces.)
See also
getLine()
def libsbml.SBase.getCVTerm (   self,
  n 
)
inherited

Returns the nth CVTerm in the list of CVTerms of this SBML object.

getCVTerm(long  n)   CVTerm
Parameters
nlong the index of the CVTerm to retrieve.
Returns
the nth CVTerm in the list of CVTerms for this SBML object. If the index n is invalid, None is returned.
def libsbml.SBase.getCVTerms (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns a list of CVTerm objects in the annotations of this SBML object.

getCVTerms()   List *
Returns
the list of CVTerms for this SBML object.
def libsbml.SBase.getDisabledPlugin (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the nth disabled plug-in object (extension interface) for an SBML Level 3 package extension.

getDisabledPlugin(long  n)   SBasePlugin

If no such plugin exists, None is returned.

SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.
If a plugin is disabled, the package information it contains is no longer considered to be part of the SBML document for the purposes of searching the document or writing out the document. However, the information is still retained, so if the plugin is enabled again, the same information will once again be available, and will be written out to the final model.
Parameters
nthe index of the disabled plug-in to return.
Returns
the nth disabled plug-in object (the libSBML extension interface) of a package extension. If the index n is invalid, None is returned.
See also
getNumDisabledPlugins()
getPlugin()
def libsbml.ListOf.getElementByMetaId (   self,
  metaid 
)
inherited

Returns the first child element found with the given meta-identifier.

getElementByMetaId(string metaid)   SBase
Parameters
metaidstring representing the 'metaid' attribute of the object to find.
Returns
the first element found with the given metaid, or None if no such object is found.
def libsbml.ListOf.getElementBySId (   self,
  id 
)
inherited

Returns the first child element found that has the given identifier.

getElementBySId(string id)   SBase

This method searches this ListOf's list of items for SBML objects based on their 'id' attribute value in the model-wide SId identifier namespace.

Parameters
idstring representing the id of the object to find.
Returns
the first element found with the given id, or None if no such object is found.
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.getElementName (   self)

Returns the XML element name of this object, which for ListOfSpeciesFeatures, is always 'listOfSpeciesFeatures'.

getElementName()   string
Returns
the name of this element, i.e. 'listOfSpeciesFeatures'.
def libsbml.SBase.getId (   self)
inherited

Returns the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object, if it has one, or the 'variable' attribute of a Rule, or the 'symbol' attribute of an InitialAssignment.

getId()   string
The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Returns
the id of this SBML object, or the 'variable' if the object is a Rule, or the 'symbol' if the object is an InitialAssignment.
Note
Because of the inconsistent behavior of this function with respect to assignments and rules, callers should use getIdAttribute() instead.
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.getIdAttribute (   self)
inherited

Returns the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object.

getIdAttribute()   string
The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Returns
the id of this SBML object, if set and valid for this level and version of SBML; an empty string otherwise.
Note
Because of the inconsistent behavior of this function with respect to assignments and rules, callers should use getIdAttribute() instead.
See also
setIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.getItemTypeCode (   self)

Returns the libSBML type code for the SBML objects contained in this ListOf object.

LibSBML attaches an identifying code to every kind of SBML object. These are known as SBML type codes. In the Python language interface for libSBML, the type codes are defined as static integer constants in the interface class libsbml. The names of the type codes all begin with the characters SBML_.

Returns
the SBML type code for the objects in this ListOf instance, or SBML_UNKNOWN (default).
See also
getElementName()
def libsbml.SBase.getLevel (   self)
inherited

Returns the SBML Level of the SBMLDocument object containing this object.

getLevel()   long
LibSBML uses the class SBMLDocument as a top-level container for storing SBML content and data associated with it (such as warnings and error messages). An SBML model in libSBML is contained inside an SBMLDocument object. SBMLDocument corresponds roughly to the class SBML defined in the SBML Level 3 and Level 2 specifications, but it does not have a direct correspondence in SBML Level 1. (But, it is created by libSBML no matter whether the model is Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3.)
Returns
the SBML level of this SBML object.
See also
getVersion()
getNamespaces()
getPackageVersion()
def libsbml.SBase.getLine (   self)
inherited

Returns the line number where this object first appears in the XML representation of the SBML document.

getLine()   long
Returns
the line number of this SBML object. If this object was created programmatically and not read from a file, this method will return the value 0.
Note
The line number for each construct in an SBML model is set upon reading the model. The accuracy of the line number depends on the correctness of the XML representation of the model, and on the particular XML parser library being used. The former limitation relates to the following problem: if the model is actually invalid XML, then the parser may not be able to interpret the data correctly and consequently may not be able to establish the real line number. The latter limitation is simply that different parsers seem to have their own accuracy limitations, and out of all the parsers supported by libSBML, none have been 100% accurate in all situations. (At this time, libSBML supports the use of libxml2, Expat and Xerces.)
See also
getColumn()
def libsbml.SBase.getListOfAllElements (   self,
  filter = None 
)
inherited

Returns an SBaseList of all child SBase objects, including those nested to an arbitrary depth.

getListOfAllElements(ElementFilter filter)   SBaseList
getListOfAllElements()   SBaseList
Returns
a list of all objects that are children of this object.
def libsbml.SBase.getListOfAllElementsFromPlugins (   self,
  filter = None 
)
inherited

Returns a List of all child SBase objects contained in SBML package plug-ins.

getListOfAllElementsFromPlugins(ElementFilter filter)   SBaseList
getListOfAllElementsFromPlugins()   SBaseList
SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.

This method walks down the list of all SBML Level 3 packages used by this object and returns all child objects defined by those packages.

Returns
a pointer to a List of pointers to all children objects from plug-ins.
def libsbml.SBase.getMetaId (   self)
inherited

Returns the value of the 'metaid' attribute of this SBML object.

getMetaId()   string
The optional attribute named 'metaid', present on every major SBML component type, is for supporting metadata annotations using RDF (Resource Description Format). The attribute value has the data type XML ID, the XML identifier type, which means each 'metaid' value must be globally unique within an SBML file. The latter point is important, because the uniqueness criterion applies across any attribute with type ID anywhere in the file, not just the 'metaid' attribute used by SBML—something to be aware of if your application-specific XML content inside the 'annotation' subelement happens to use the XML ID type. Although SBML itself specifies the use of XML ID only for the 'metaid' attribute, SBML-compatible applications should be careful if they use XML ID's in XML portions of a model that are not defined by SBML, such as in the application-specific content of the 'annotation' subelement. Finally, note that LibSBML does not provide an explicit XML ID data type; it uses ordinary character strings, which is easier for applications to support.
Returns
the meta-identifier of this SBML object.
See also
isSetMetaId()
setMetaId()
def libsbml.SBase.getModel (   self)
inherited

Returns the Model object for the SBML Document in which the current object is located.

getModel()   Model
Returns
the Model object for the SBML Document of this SBML object.
See also
getParentSBMLObject()
getSBMLDocument()
def libsbml.SBase.getModelHistory (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the ModelHistory object, if any, attached to this object.

getModelHistory()   ModelHistory
Returns
the ModelHistory object attached to this object, or None if none exist.
Note
In SBML Level 2, model history annotations were only permitted on the Model element. In SBML Level 3, they are permitted on all SBML components derived from SBase.
def libsbml.SBase.getName (   self)
inherited

Returns the value of the 'name' attribute of this SBML object.

getName()   string
In SBML Level 3 Version 2, the 'id' and 'name' attributes were moved to SBase directly, instead of being defined individually for many (but not all) objects. LibSBML has for a long time provided functions defined on SBase itself to get, set, and unset those attributes, which would fail or otherwise return empty strings if executed on any object for which those attributes were not defined. Now that all SBase objects define those attributes, those functions now succeed for any object with the appropriate level and version.

The 'name' attribute is optional and is not intended to be used for cross-referencing purposes within a model. Its purpose instead is to provide a human-readable label for the component. The data type of 'name' is the type string defined in XML Schema. SBML imposes no restrictions as to the content of 'name' attributes beyond those restrictions defined by the string type in XML Schema.

The recommended practice for handling 'name' is as follows. If a software tool has the capability for displaying the content of 'name' attributes, it should display this content to the user as a component's label instead of the component's 'id'. If the user interface does not have this capability (e.g., because it cannot display or use special characters in symbol names), or if the 'name' attribute is missing on a given component, then the user interface should display the value of the 'id' attribute instead. (Script language interpreters are especially likely to display 'id' instead of 'name'.)

As a consequence of the above, authors of systems that automatically generate the values of 'id' attributes should be aware some systems may display the 'id''s to the user. Authors therefore may wish to take some care to have their software create 'id' values that are: (a) reasonably easy for humans to type and read; and (b) likely to be meaningful, for example by making the 'id' attribute be an abbreviated form of the name attribute value.

An additional point worth mentioning is although there are restrictions on the uniqueness of 'id' values, there are no restrictions on the uniqueness of 'name' values in a model. This allows software applications leeway in assigning component identifiers.

Regardless of the level and version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have names). If the object in question does not posess a 'name' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the name to be set, nor will it read or write 'name' attributes for those objects.

Returns
the name of this SBML object, or the empty string if not set or unsettable.
See also
getIdAttribute()
isSetName()
setName()
unsetName()
def libsbml.SBase.getNamespaces (   self)
inherited

Returns a list of the XML Namespaces declared on the SBML document owning this object.

getNamespaces()   XMLNamespaces

The SBMLNamespaces object encapsulates SBML Level/Version/namespaces information. It is used to communicate the SBML Level, Version, and (in Level 3) packages used in addition to SBML Level 3 Core.

Returns
the XML Namespaces associated with this SBML object, or None in certain very usual circumstances where a namespace is not set.
See also
getLevel()
getVersion()
def libsbml.SBase.getNotes (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object as a tree of XMLNode objects.

getNotes()   XMLNode
The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type (and in SBML Level 3, the 'message' subelement of Constraint), is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements conform to the definition of XHTML 1.0. However, the content cannot be entirely free-form; it must satisfy certain requirements defined in the SBML specifications for specific SBML Levels. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); this method implements a verification process that lets callers check whether the content of a given XMLNode object conforms to the SBML requirements for 'notes' and 'message' structure. Developers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations of using 'notes' in SBML. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

The 'notes' element content returned by this method will be in XML form, but libSBML does not provide an object model specifically for the content of notes. Callers will need to traverse the XML tree structure using the facilities available on XMLNode and related objects. For an alternative method of accessing the notes, see getNotesString().

Returns
the content of the 'notes' subelement of this SBML object as a tree structure composed of XMLNode objects.
See also
getNotesString()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
def libsbml.SBase.getNotesString (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object as a string.

getNotesString()   string
The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type (and in SBML Level 3, the 'message' subelement of Constraint), is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements conform to the definition of XHTML 1.0. However, the content cannot be entirely free-form; it must satisfy certain requirements defined in the SBML specifications for specific SBML Levels. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); this method implements a verification process that lets callers check whether the content of a given XMLNode object conforms to the SBML requirements for 'notes' and 'message' structure. Developers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations of using 'notes' in SBML. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

For an alternative method of accessing the notes, see getNotes(), which returns the content as an XMLNode tree structure. Depending on an application's needs, one or the other method may be more convenient.

Returns
the content of the 'notes' subelement of this SBML object as a string.
See also
getNotes()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
def libsbml.SBase.getNumCVTerms (   self)
inherited

Returns the number of CVTerm objects in the annotations of this SBML object.

getNumCVTerms()   long
Returns
the number of CVTerms for this SBML object.
def libsbml.SBase.getNumDisabledPlugins (   self)
inherited

Returns the number of disabled plug-in objects (extension interfaces) for SBML Level 3 package extensions known.

getNumDisabledPlugins()   long
SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.
If a plugin is disabled, the package information it contains is no longer considered to be part of the SBML document for the purposes of searching the document or writing out the document. However, the information is still retained, so if the plugin is enabled again, the same information will once again be available, and will be written out to the final model.
Returns
the number of disabled plug-in objects (extension interfaces) of package extensions known by this instance of libSBML.
def libsbml.SBase.getNumPlugins (   self)
inherited

Returns the number of plug-in objects (extenstion interfaces) for SBML Level 3 package extensions known.

getNumPlugins()   long
SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.
Returns
the number of plug-in objects (extension interfaces) of package extensions known by this instance of libSBML.
See also
getPlugin()
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.getNumSpeciesFeatures (   self)
getNumSpeciesFeatures()   long
 
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.getNumSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (   self)
getNumSubListOfSpeciesFeatures()   long
 
def libsbml.SBase.getPackageCoreVersion (   self)
inherited

Returns the SBML Core Version within the SBML Level of the actual object.

getPackageCoreVersion()   long
LibSBML uses the class SBMLDocument as a top-level container for storing SBML content and data associated with it (such as warnings and error messages). An SBML model in libSBML is contained inside an SBMLDocument object. SBMLDocument corresponds roughly to the class SBML defined in the SBML Level 3 and Level 2 specifications, but it does not have a direct correspondence in SBML Level 1. (But, it is created by libSBML no matter whether the model is Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3.)
Returns
the SBML core version of this SBML object.
def libsbml.SBase.getPackageName (   self)
inherited

Returns the name of the SBML Level 3 package in which this element is defined.

getPackageName()   string
Returns
the name of the SBML package in which this element is defined. The string "core" will be returned if this element is defined in SBML Level 3 Core. The string "unknown" will be returned if this element is not defined in any SBML package.
def libsbml.SBase.getPackageVersion (   self)
inherited

Returns the Version of the SBML Level 3 package to which this element belongs to.

getPackageVersion()   long
Returns
the version of the SBML Level 3 package to which this element belongs. The value 0 will be returned if this element belongs to the SBML Level 3 Core package.
See also
getLevel()
getVersion()
def libsbml.SBase.getParentSBMLObject (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the parent SBML object containing this object.

getParentSBMLObject()   SBase

This returns the immediately-containing object. This method is convenient when holding an object nested inside other objects in an SBML model.

Returns
the parent SBML object of this SBML object.
See also
getSBMLDocument()
getModel()
def libsbml.SBase.getPlugin (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

getPlugin(string package)   SBasePlugin
getPlugin(long  n)   SBasePlugin

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
getPlugin(long n)

Returns the nth plug-in object (extension interface) for an SBML Level 3 package extension. The returned plug-in will be the appropriate type of plugin requested: calling Model.getPlugin() will return an FbcModelPlugin; calling Parameter.getPlugin() will return CompSBasePlugin, etc.

If no such plugin exists, None is returned.

SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.
Parameters
nthe index of the plug-in to return.
Returns
the nth plug-in object (the libSBML extension interface) of a package extension. If the index n is invalid, None is returned.
See also
getNumPlugins()
getPlugin()

Method variant with the following signature:
getPlugin(string package)

Returns a plug-in object (extension interface) for an SBML Level 3 package extension with the given package name or URI. The returned plug-in will be the appropriate type of plugin requested: calling Model.getPlugin() will return an FbcModelPlugin; calling Parameter.getPlugin() will return CompSBasePlugin, etc.

If no such plugin exists, None is returned.

SBML Level 3 consists of a Core definition that can be extended via optional SBML Level 3 packages. A given model may indicate that it uses one or more SBML packages, and likewise, a software tool may be able to support one or more packages. LibSBML does not come preconfigured with all possible packages included and enabled, in part because not all package specifications have been finalized. To support the ability for software systems to enable support for the Level 3 packages they choose, libSBML features a plug-in mechanism. Each SBML Level 3 package is implemented in a separate code plug-in that can be enabled by the application to support working with that SBML package. A given SBML model may thus contain not only objects defined by SBML Level 3 Core, but also objects created by libSBML plug-ins supporting additional Level 3 packages.
Parameters
packagethe name or URI of the package.
Returns
the plug-in object (the libSBML extension interface) of a package extension with the given package name or URI.
See also
getPlugin()
def libsbml.SBase.getPrefix (   self)
inherited

Returns the XML namespace prefix of this element.

getPrefix()   string

This reports the XML namespace prefix chosen for this class of object in the current SBML document. This may be an empty string if the component has no explicit prefix (for instance, if it is a core SBML object placed in the default SBML namespace of the document). If it is not empty, then it corresponds to the XML namespace prefix used set the object, whatever that may be in a given SBML document.

Returns
a text string representing the XML namespace prefix.
def libsbml.SBase.getResourceBiologicalQualifier (   self,
  resource 
)
inherited

Returns the MIRIAM biological qualifier associated with the given resource.

getResourceBiologicalQualifier(string resource)   long

In MIRIAM, qualifiers are an optional means of indicating the relationship between a model component and its annotations. There are two broad kinds of annotations: model and biological. The latter kind is used to qualify the relationship between a model component and a biological entity which it represents. Examples of relationships include 'is' and 'has part', but many others are possible. MIRIAM defines numerous relationship qualifiers to enable different software tools to qualify biological annotations in the same standardized way. In libSBML, the MIRIAM controlled-vocabulary annotations on an SBML model element are represented using lists of CVTerm objects, and the the MIRIAM biological qualifiers are represented using valueswhose names begin with BQB_ in the interface class libsbml.

This method searches the controlled-vocabulary annotations (i.e., the list of CVTerm objects) on the present object, then out of those that have biological qualifiers, looks for an annotation to the given resource. If such an annotation is found, it returns the type of biological qualifier associated with that resource as a valuewhose name begins with BQB_ from the interface class libsbml.

Parameters
resourcestring representing the resource; e.g., 'http://www.geneontology.org/#GO:0005892'.
Returns
the qualifier associated with the resource, or BQB_UNKNOWN if the resource does not exist.
Note
The set of MIRIAM biological qualifiers grows over time, although relatively slowly. The values are up to date with MIRIAM at the time of a given libSBML release. The set of values in list of BQB_ constants defined in libsbml may be expanded in later libSBML releases, to match the values defined by MIRIAM at that later time.
def libsbml.SBase.getResourceModelQualifier (   self,
  resource 
)
inherited

Returns the MIRIAM model qualifier associated with the given resource.

getResourceModelQualifier(string resource)   long

In MIRIAM, qualifiers are an optional means of indicating the relationship between a model component and its annotations. There are two broad kinds of annotations: model and biological. The former kind is used to qualify the relationship between a model component and another modeling object. An example qualifier is 'isDerivedFrom', to indicate that a given component of the model is derived from the modeling object represented by the referenced resource. MIRIAM defines numerous relationship qualifiers to enable different software tools to qualify model annotations in the same standardized way. In libSBML, the MIRIAM controlled-vocabulary annotations on an SBML model element are represented using lists of CVTerm objects, and the the MIRIAM model qualifiers are represented using valueswhose names begin with BQM_ in the interface class libsbml.

This method method searches the controlled-vocabulary annotations (i.e., the list of CVTerm objects) on the present object, then out of those that have model qualifiers, looks for an annotation to the given resource. If such an annotation is found, it returns the type of type of model qualifier associated with that resource as a valuewhose name begins with BQM_ from the interface class libsbml.

Parameters
resourcestring representing the resource; e.g., 'http://www.geneontology.org/#GO:0005892'.
Returns
the model qualifier type associated with the resource, or BQM_UNKNOWN if the resource does not exist.
Note
The set of MIRIAM model qualifiers grows over time, although relatively slowly. The values are up to date with MIRIAM at the time of a given libSBML release. The set of values in list of BQM_ constants defined in libsbml may be expanded in later libSBML releases, to match the values defined by MIRIAM at that later time.
def libsbml.SBase.getSBMLDocument (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns the SBMLDocument object containing this object instance.

getSBMLDocument()   SBMLDocument
LibSBML uses the class SBMLDocument as a top-level container for storing SBML content and data associated with it (such as warnings and error messages). An SBML model in libSBML is contained inside an SBMLDocument object. SBMLDocument corresponds roughly to the class SBML defined in the SBML Level 3 and Level 2 specifications, but it does not have a direct correspondence in SBML Level 1. (But, it is created by libSBML no matter whether the model is Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3.)

This method allows the caller to obtain the SBMLDocument for the current object.

Returns
the parent SBMLDocument object of this SBML object.
See also
getParentSBMLObject()
getModel()
def libsbml.SBase.getSBOTerm (   self)
inherited

Returns the integer portion of the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this object.

getSBOTerm()   int
Beginning with SBML Level 2 Version 2, objects derived from SBase have an optional attribute named 'sboTerm' for supporting the use of the Systems Biology Ontology. In SBML proper, the data type of the attribute is a string of the form 'SBO:NNNNNNN', where 'NNNNNNN' is a seven digit integer number; libSBML simplifies the representation by only storing the 'NNNNNNN' integer portion. Thus, in libSBML, the 'sboTerm' attribute on SBase has data type int, and SBO identifiers are stored simply as integers.
SBO terms are a type of optional annotation, and each different class of SBML object derived from SBase imposes its own requirements about the values permitted for 'sboTerm'. More details can be found in SBML specifications for Level 2 Version 2 and above.
Returns
the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute as an integer, or -1 if the value is not set.
def libsbml.SBase.getSBOTermAsURL (   self)
inherited

Returns the URL representation of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this object.

getSBOTermAsURL()   string

This method returns the entire SBO identifier as a text string in the form http://identifiers.org/biomodels.sbo/SBO:NNNNNNN'.

SBO terms are a type of optional annotation, and each different class of SBML object derived from SBase imposes its own requirements about the values permitted for 'sboTerm'. More details can be found in SBML specifications for Level 2 Version 2 and above.
Returns
the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute as an identifiers.org URL, or an empty string if the value is not set.
def libsbml.SBase.getSBOTermID (   self)
inherited

Returns the string representation of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this object.

getSBOTermID()   string
Beginning with SBML Level 2 Version 2, objects derived from SBase have an optional attribute named 'sboTerm' for supporting the use of the Systems Biology Ontology. In SBML proper, the data type of the attribute is a string of the form 'SBO:NNNNNNN', where 'NNNNNNN' is a seven digit integer number; libSBML simplifies the representation by only storing the 'NNNNNNN' integer portion. Thus, in libSBML, the 'sboTerm' attribute on SBase has data type int, and SBO identifiers are stored simply as integers.
SBO terms are a type of optional annotation, and each different class of SBML object derived from SBase imposes its own requirements about the values permitted for 'sboTerm'. More details can be found in SBML specifications for Level 2 Version 2 and above.
Returns
the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute as a string (its value will be of the form 'SBO:NNNNNNN'), or an empty string if the value is not set.
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.getSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (   self,
  args 
)

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

getSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(long  n)   SubListOfSpeciesFeatures
getSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(string sid)   SubListOfSpeciesFeatures

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
getSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(long n)

Get a SubListOfSpeciesFeatures from the ListOfSpeciesFeatures.

Parameters
nthe index number of the SubListOfSpeciesFeatures to get.
Returns
the nth SubListOfSpeciesFeatures in this ListOfSpeciesFeatures. If the index n is invalid, None is returned.
See also
size()

Method variant with the following signature:
getSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(string sid)

Get a SubListOfSpeciesFeatures from the ListOfSpeciesFeatures based on its identifier.

Parameters
sida string representing the identifier of the SubListOfSpeciesFeatures to get.
Returns
SubListOfSpeciesFeatures in this ListOfSpeciesFeatures with the given id or None if no such SubListOfSpeciesFeatures exists.
See also
get() *
size()
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.getTypeCode (   self)

Returns the libSBML type code for this SBML object.

getTypeCode()   int

LibSBML attaches an identifying code to every kind of SBML object. These are known as SBML type codes. In the Python language interface for libSBML, the type codes are defined as static integer constants in the interface class libsbml. The names of the type codes all begin with the characters SBML_.

Returns
the SBML type code for this object, or SBML_UNKNOWN (default).
See also
getElementName()
def libsbml.SBase.getURI (   self)
inherited

Gets the namespace URI to which this element belongs to.

getURI()   string

For example, all elements that belong to SBML Level 3 Version 1 Core must would have the URI 'http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level3/version1/core'; all elements that belong to Layout Extension Version 1 for SBML Level 3 Version 1 Core must would have the URI 'http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level3/version1/layout/version1'.

This function first returns the URI for this element by looking into the SBMLNamespaces object of the document with the its package name. If not found, it will then look for the namespace associated with the element itself.

Returns
the URI of this element, as a text string.
See also
getSBMLDocument()
getPackageName()
def libsbml.SBase.getVersion (   self)
inherited

Returns the Version within the SBML Level of the SBMLDocument object containing this object.

getVersion()   long
LibSBML uses the class SBMLDocument as a top-level container for storing SBML content and data associated with it (such as warnings and error messages). An SBML model in libSBML is contained inside an SBMLDocument object. SBMLDocument corresponds roughly to the class SBML defined in the SBML Level 3 and Level 2 specifications, but it does not have a direct correspondence in SBML Level 1. (But, it is created by libSBML no matter whether the model is Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3.)
Returns
the SBML version of this SBML object.
See also
getLevel()
getNamespaces()
def libsbml.SBase.hasValidLevelVersionNamespaceCombination (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning true if this object's level/version and namespace values correspond to a valid SBML specification.

hasValidLevelVersionNamespaceCombination()   bool

The valid combinations of SBML Level, Version and Namespace as of this release of libSBML are the following:

  • Level 1 Version 2: http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level1
  • Level 2 Version 1: http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level2
  • Level 2 Version 2: http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level2/version2
  • Level 2 Version 3: http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level2/version3
  • Level 2 Version 4: http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level2/version4
  • Level 3 Version 1 Core: http://www.sbml.org/sbml/level3/version1/core
Returns
true if the level, version and namespace values of this SBML object correspond to a valid set of values, false otherwise.
def libsbml.ListOf.insert (   self,
  location,
  item 
)
inherited

Inserts an item at a given position in this ListOf's list of items.

insert(int location, SBase item)   int

This variant of the method makes a clone of the item handed to it. This means that when the ListOf is destroyed, the original item will not be destroyed.

Parameters
locationthe location in the list where to insert the item.
itemthe item to be inserted to the list.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
insertAndOwn()
def libsbml.ListOf.insertAndOwn (   self,
  location,
  disownedItem 
)
inherited

Inserts an item at a given position in this ListOf's list of items.

insertAndOwn(int location, SBase disownedItem)   int

This variant of the method does not make a clone of the disownedItem handed to it. This means that when the ListOf is destroyed, the original item will be destroyed.

Parameters
locationthe location where to insert the item.
disownedItemthe item to be inserted to the list. Will become a child of the parent list.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
insert()
def libsbml.SBase.isPackageEnabled (   self,
  pkgName 
)
inherited

Predicate returning True if the given SBML Level 3 package is enabled with this object.

isPackageEnabled(string pkgName)   bool

The search ignores the package version.

Parameters
pkgNamethe name of the package.
Returns
True if the given package is enabled within this object, False otherwise.
See also
isPackageURIEnabled()
def libsbml.SBase.isPackageURIEnabled (   self,
  pkgURI 
)
inherited

Predicate returning True if an SBML Level 3 package with the given URI is enabled with this object.

isPackageURIEnabled(string pkgURI)   bool
Parameters
pkgURIthe URI of the package.
Returns
True if the given package is enabled within this object, False otherwise.
See also
isPackageEnabled()
def libsbml.SBase.isPkgEnabled (   self,
  pkgName 
)
inherited

Predicate returning True if the given SBML Level 3 package is enabled with this object.

isPkgEnabled(string pkgName)   bool

The search ignores the package version.

Parameters
pkgNamethe name of the package.
Returns
True if the given package is enabled within this object, False otherwise.
See also
isPkgURIEnabled()
def libsbml.SBase.isPkgURIEnabled (   self,
  pkgURI 
)
inherited

Predicate returning True if an SBML Level 3 package with the given URI is enabled with this object.

isPkgURIEnabled(string pkgURI)   bool
Parameters
pkgURIthe URI of the package.
Returns
True if the given package is enabled within this object, False otherwise.
See also
isPkgEnabled()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetAnnotation (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object's 'annotation' subelement exists and has content.

isSetAnnotation()   bool

Whereas the SBase 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Returns
True if a 'annotation' subelement exists, False otherwise.
See also
getAnnotation()
getAnnotationString()
setAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetId (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if a call to getId() returns a non-empty string.

isSetId()   bool

For most objects, this function will return True if its 'id' attribute is set, and False if it is not, or if the object has no 'id' attribute at all. However, for an EventAssignment or a Rule, isSetId() checks whether the 'variable' attribute is set, and for an InitialAssignment, it checks whether the 'symbol' attribute is set. Because those elements will also have an 'id' attribute in SBML Level 3 Version 2 which isSetId() will not check, the function itself is deprecated, and it is recommended to use isSetIdAttribute() in all cases where one needs to know whether the 'id' attribute is set, and to use EventAssignment.isSetVariable(), Rule.isSetVariable() and InitialAssignment.isSetSymbol() when the status of the 'variable' or 'symbol' attributes need to be checked.

The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Returns
True if the 'id' attribute of this SBML object is set, False otherwise.
Note
Because of the inconsistent behavior of this function with respect to assignments and rules, it is recommended that callers use isSetIdAttribute() instead.
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetIdAttribute (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object's 'id' attribute is set.

isSetIdAttribute()   bool
The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Returns
True if the 'id' attribute of this SBML object is set, False otherwise.
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetMetaId (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object's 'metaid' attribute is set.

isSetMetaId()   bool
The optional attribute named 'metaid', present on every major SBML component type, is for supporting metadata annotations using RDF (Resource Description Format). The attribute value has the data type XML ID, the XML identifier type, which means each 'metaid' value must be globally unique within an SBML file. The latter point is important, because the uniqueness criterion applies across any attribute with type ID anywhere in the file, not just the 'metaid' attribute used by SBML—something to be aware of if your application-specific XML content inside the 'annotation' subelement happens to use the XML ID type. Although SBML itself specifies the use of XML ID only for the 'metaid' attribute, SBML-compatible applications should be careful if they use XML ID's in XML portions of a model that are not defined by SBML, such as in the application-specific content of the 'annotation' subelement. Finally, note that LibSBML does not provide an explicit XML ID data type; it uses ordinary character strings, which is easier for applications to support.
Returns
True if the 'metaid' attribute of this SBML object is set, False otherwise.
See also
getMetaId()
setMetaId()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetModelHistory (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object has a ModelHistory object attached to it.

isSetModelHistory()   bool
Returns
True if the ModelHistory of this object is set, False otherwise.
Note
In SBML Level 2, model history annotations were only permitted on the Model element. In SBML Level 3, they are permitted on all SBML components derived from SBase.
def libsbml.SBase.isSetName (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object's 'name' attribute is set.

isSetName()   bool
In SBML Level 3 Version 2, the 'id' and 'name' attributes were moved to SBase directly, instead of being defined individually for many (but not all) objects. LibSBML has for a long time provided functions defined on SBase itself to get, set, and unset those attributes, which would fail or otherwise return empty strings if executed on any object for which those attributes were not defined. Now that all SBase objects define those attributes, those functions now succeed for any object with the appropriate level and version.

The 'name' attribute is optional and is not intended to be used for cross-referencing purposes within a model. Its purpose instead is to provide a human-readable label for the component. The data type of 'name' is the type string defined in XML Schema. SBML imposes no restrictions as to the content of 'name' attributes beyond those restrictions defined by the string type in XML Schema.

The recommended practice for handling 'name' is as follows. If a software tool has the capability for displaying the content of 'name' attributes, it should display this content to the user as a component's label instead of the component's 'id'. If the user interface does not have this capability (e.g., because it cannot display or use special characters in symbol names), or if the 'name' attribute is missing on a given component, then the user interface should display the value of the 'id' attribute instead. (Script language interpreters are especially likely to display 'id' instead of 'name'.)

As a consequence of the above, authors of systems that automatically generate the values of 'id' attributes should be aware some systems may display the 'id''s to the user. Authors therefore may wish to take some care to have their software create 'id' values that are: (a) reasonably easy for humans to type and read; and (b) likely to be meaningful, for example by making the 'id' attribute be an abbreviated form of the name attribute value.

An additional point worth mentioning is although there are restrictions on the uniqueness of 'id' values, there are no restrictions on the uniqueness of 'name' values in a model. This allows software applications leeway in assigning component identifiers.

Regardless of the level and version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have names). If the object in question does not posess a 'name' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the name to be set, nor will it read or write 'name' attributes for those objects.

Returns
True if the 'name' attribute of this SBML object is set, False otherwise.
See also
getName()
setName()
unsetName()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetNotes (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object's 'notes' subelement exists and has content.

isSetNotes()   bool

The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type, is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements must be XHTML 1.0. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); however, readers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

Returns
True if a 'notes' subelement exists, False otherwise.
See also
getNotes()
getNotesString()
setNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
def libsbml.SBase.isSetSBOTerm (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning True if this object's 'sboTerm' attribute is set.

isSetSBOTerm()   bool
Returns
True if the 'sboTerm' attribute of this SBML object is set, False otherwise.
def libsbml.SBase.isSetUserData (   self)
inherited

Predicate returning true or false depending on whether the user data of this element has been set.

isSetUserData()   bool
The user data associated with an SBML object can be used by an application developer to attach custom information to that object in the model. In case of a deep copy, this data will passed as-is. The data attribute will never be interpreted by libSBML.
Returns
boolean, True if this object's user data has been set, False otherwise.
def libsbml.SBase.matchesRequiredSBMLNamespacesForAddition (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns True if this object's set of XML namespaces are a subset of the given object's XML namespaces.

matchesRequiredSBMLNamespacesForAddition(SBase sb)   bool
The SBMLNamespaces object encapsulates SBML Level/Version/namespaces information. It is used to communicate the SBML Level, Version, and (in Level 3) packages used in addition to SBML Level 3 Core. A common approach to using libSBML's SBMLNamespaces facilities is to create an SBMLNamespaces object somewhere in a program once, then hand that object as needed to object constructors that accept SBMLNamespaces as arguments.
Parameters
sban object to compare with respect to namespaces.
Returns
boolean, True if this object's collection of namespaces is a subset of sb's, False otherwise.
def libsbml.SBase.matchesSBMLNamespaces (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Returns True if this object's set of XML namespaces are the same as the given object's XML namespaces.

matchesSBMLNamespaces(SBase sb)   bool
The SBMLNamespaces object encapsulates SBML Level/Version/namespaces information. It is used to communicate the SBML Level, Version, and (in Level 3) packages used in addition to SBML Level 3 Core. A common approach to using libSBML's SBMLNamespaces facilities is to create an SBMLNamespaces object somewhere in a program once, then hand that object as needed to object constructors that accept SBMLNamespaces as arguments.
Parameters
sban object to compare with respect to namespaces.
Returns
boolean, True if this object's collection of namespaces is the same as sb's, False otherwise.
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.remove (   self,
  args 
)

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

remove(long  n)   SpeciesFeature
remove(string sid)   SpeciesFeature

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
remove(long n)

Removes the nth SpeciesFeature from this ListOfSpeciesFeatures and returns a pointer to it.

The caller owns the returned item and is responsible for deleting it.

Parameters
nthe index of the SpeciesFeature to remove.
See also
size()

Method variant with the following signature:
remove(string sid)

Removes the SpeciesFeature from this ListOfSpeciesFeatures with the given identifier and returns a pointer to it.

The caller owns the returned item and is responsible for deleting it. If none of the items in this list have the identifier sid, then None is returned.

Parameters
sidthe identifier of the SpeciesFeature to remove.
Returns
the SpeciesFeature removed. As mentioned above, the caller owns the returned item.
def libsbml.ListOf.removeFromParentAndDelete (   self)
inherited

Removes all items in this ListOf object and deletes its properties too.

removeFromParentAndDelete()   int

This performs a call to clear() with an argument of True (thus removing all the child objects in the list), followed by calls to various libSBML unsetFoo methods to delete everything else: CVTerm objects, model history objects, etc.

Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.removeSubListOfSpeciesFeatures (   self,
  args 
)

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

removeSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(long  n)   SubListOfSpeciesFeatures
removeSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(string sid)   SubListOfSpeciesFeatures

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
removeSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(long n)

Removes the nth SubListOfSpeciesFeatures from this ListOfSpeciesFeatures and returns a pointer to it.

The caller owns the returned item and is responsible for deleting it.

Parameters
nthe index of the SubListOfSpeciesFeatures to remove.
See also
size()

Method variant with the following signature:
removeSubListOfSpeciesFeatures(string sid)

Removes the SubListOfSpeciesFeatures from this ListOfSpeciesFeatures with the given identifier and returns a pointer to it.

The caller owns the returned item and is responsible for deleting it. If none of the items in this list have the identifier sid, then None is returned.

Parameters
sidthe identifier of the SubListOfSpeciesFeatures to remove.
Returns
the SubListOfSpeciesFeatures removed. As mentioned above, the caller owns the returned item.
def libsbml.SBase.removeTopLevelAnnotationElement (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

Removes the top-level element within the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object with the given name and optional URI.

removeTopLevelAnnotationElement(string elementName, string elementURI, bool removeEmpty)   int
removeTopLevelAnnotationElement(string elementName, string elementURI)   int
removeTopLevelAnnotationElement(string elementName)   int

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Calling this method allows a particular annotation element to be removed whilst the remaining annotations remain intact.

Parameters
elementNamea string representing the name of the top level annotation element that is to be removed.
elementURIan optional string that is used to check both the name and URI of the top level element to be removed.
removeEmptyif after removing of the element, the annotation is empty, and the removeEmpty argument is true, the annotation node will be deleted (default).
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement()
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement()
Note
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.
def libsbml.SBase.renameMetaIdRefs (   self,
  oldid,
  newid 
)
inherited

Replaces all uses of a given meta identifier attribute value with another value.

renameMetaIdRefs(string oldid, string newid)
In SBML, object 'meta' identifiers are of the XML data type ID; the SBML object attribute itself is typically named metaid. All attributes that hold values referring to values of type ID are of the XML data type IDREF. They are also sometimes informally referred to as 'metaid refs', in analogy to the SBML-defined type SIdRef.

This method works by looking at all meta-identifier attribute values, comparing the identifiers to the value of oldid. If any matches are found, the matching identifiers are replaced with newid. The method does not descend into child elements.

Parameters
oldidthe old identifier.
newidthe new identifier.
def libsbml.SBase.renameSIdRefs (   self,
  oldid,
  newid 
)
inherited

Replaces all uses of a given SIdRef type attribute value with another value.

renameSIdRefs(string oldid, string newid)
In SBML, object identifiers are of a data type called SId. In SBML Level 3, an explicit data type called SIdRef was introduced for attribute values that refer to SId values; in previous Levels of SBML, this data type did not exist and attributes were simply described to as 'referring to an identifier', but the effective data type was the same as SIdRef in Level 3. These and other methods of libSBML refer to the type SIdRef for all Levels of SBML, even if the corresponding SBML specification did not explicitly name the data type.

This method works by looking at all attributes and (if appropriate) mathematical formulas in MathML content, comparing the referenced identifiers to the value of oldid. If any matches are found, the matching values are replaced with newid. The method does not descend into child elements.

Parameters
oldidthe old identifier.
newidthe new identifier.
def libsbml.SBase.renameUnitSIdRefs (   self,
  oldid,
  newid 
)
inherited

Replaces all uses of a given UnitSIdRef type attribute value with another value.

renameUnitSIdRefs(string oldid, string newid)
In SBML, unit definitions have identifiers of type UnitSId. In SBML Level 3, an explicit data type called UnitSIdRef was introduced for attribute values that refer to UnitSId values; in previous Levels of SBML, this data type did not exist and attributes were simply described to as 'referring to a unit identifier', but the effective data type was the same as UnitSIdRef in Level 3. These and other methods of libSBML refer to the type UnitSIdRef for all Levels of SBML, even if the corresponding SBML specification did not explicitly name the data type.

This method works by looking at all unit identifier attribute values (including, if appropriate, inside mathematical formulas), comparing the referenced unit identifiers to the value of oldid. If any matches are found, the matching values are replaced with newid. The method does not descend into child elements.

Parameters
oldidthe old identifier.
newidthe new identifier.
def libsbml.SBase.replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement(XMLNode annotation)   int
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement(string annotation)   int

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement(XMLNode annotation)

Replaces the given top-level element within the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object and with the annotation element supplied.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

This method determines the name of the element to be replaced from the annotation argument. Functionally it is equivalent to calling removeTopLevelAnnotationElement(name) followed by calling appendAnnotation(annotation_with_name), with the exception that the placement of the annotation element remains the same.

Parameters
annotationXMLNode representing the replacement top level annotation.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
removeTopLevelAnnotationElement()
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement()

Method variant with the following signature:
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement(string annotation)

Replaces the given top-level element within the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object and with the annotation element supplied.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

This method determines the name of the element to be replaced from the annotation argument. Functionally it is equivalent to calling removeTopLevelAnnotationElement(name) followed by calling appendAnnotation(annotation_with_name), with the exception that the placement of the annotation element remains the same.

Parameters
annotationstring representing the replacement top level annotation.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
removeTopLevelAnnotationElement()
replaceTopLevelAnnotationElement()
def libsbml.SBase.setAnnotation (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

setAnnotation(XMLNode annotation)   int
setAnnotation(string annotation)   int

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
setAnnotation(XMLNode annotation)

Sets the value of the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object.

The content of annotation is copied, and any previous content of this object's 'annotation' subelement is deleted.

Whereas the SBase 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Call this method will result in any existing content of the 'annotation' subelement to be discarded. Unless you have taken steps to first copy and reconstitute any existing annotations into the annotation that is about to be assigned, it is likely that performing such wholesale replacement is unfriendly towards other software applications whose annotations are discarded. An alternative may be to use SBase.appendAnnotation() or SBase.appendAnnotation().

Parameters
annotationan XML structure that is to be used as the new content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. This particular function only does one thing irrespective of user input or object state, and thus will only return a single value:
See also
getAnnotationString()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()

Method variant with the following signature:
setAnnotation(string annotation)

Sets the value of the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object.

The content of annotation is copied, and any previous content of this object's 'annotation' subelement is deleted.

Whereas the SBase 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Call this method will result in any existing content of the 'annotation' subelement to be discarded. Unless you have taken steps to first copy and reconstitute any existing annotations into the annotation that is about to be assigned, it is likely that performing such wholesale replacement is unfriendly towards other software applications whose annotations are discarded. An alternative may be to use SBase.appendAnnotation() or SBase.appendAnnotation().

Parameters
annotationan XML string that is to be used as the content of the 'annotation' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getAnnotationString()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
unsetAnnotation()
def libsbml.SBase.setId (   self,
  sid 
)
inherited

Sets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object.

setId(string sid)   int
The string sid is copied.
The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Parameters
sidthe string to use as the identifier of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.setIdAttribute (   self,
  sid 
)
inherited

Sets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object.

setIdAttribute(string sid)   int
The string sid is copied.
The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Parameters
sidthe string to use as the identifier of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.setMetaId (   self,
  metaid 
)
inherited

Sets the value of the meta-identifier attribute of this SBML object.

setMetaId(string metaid)   int
The optional attribute named 'metaid', present on every major SBML component type, is for supporting metadata annotations using RDF (Resource Description Format). The attribute value has the data type XML ID, the XML identifier type, which means each 'metaid' value must be globally unique within an SBML file. The latter point is important, because the uniqueness criterion applies across any attribute with type ID anywhere in the file, not just the 'metaid' attribute used by SBML—something to be aware of if your application-specific XML content inside the 'annotation' subelement happens to use the XML ID type. Although SBML itself specifies the use of XML ID only for the 'metaid' attribute, SBML-compatible applications should be careful if they use XML ID's in XML portions of a model that are not defined by SBML, such as in the application-specific content of the 'annotation' subelement. Finally, note that LibSBML does not provide an explicit XML ID data type; it uses ordinary character strings, which is easier for applications to support.

The string metaid is copied.

Parameters
metaidthe identifier string to use as the value of the 'metaid' attribute.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getMetaId()
isSetMetaId()
def libsbml.SBase.setModelHistory (   self,
  history 
)
inherited

Sets the ModelHistory of this object.

setModelHistory(ModelHistory history)   int

The content of history is copied, and this object's existing model history content is deleted.

Parameters
historyModelHistory of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
Note
In SBML Level 2, model history annotations were only permitted on the Model element. In SBML Level 3, they are permitted on all SBML components derived from SBase.
def libsbml.SBase.setName (   self,
  name 
)
inherited

Sets the value of the 'name' attribute of this SBML object.

setName(string name)   int

The string in name is copied.

Parameters
namethe new name for the SBML object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
def libsbml.SBase.setNamespaces (   self,
  xmlns 
)
inherited

Sets the namespaces relevant of this SBML object.

setNamespaces(XMLNamespaces xmlns)   int

The content of xmlns is copied, and this object's existing namespace content is deleted.

The SBMLNamespaces object encapsulates SBML Level/Version/namespaces information. It is used to communicate the SBML Level, Version, and (in Level 3) packages used in addition to SBML Level 3 Core.

Parameters
xmlnsthe namespaces to set.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
def libsbml.SBase.setNotes (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

setNotes(XMLNode notes)   int
setNotes(string notes, bool addXHTMLMarkup)   int
setNotes(string notes)   int

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
setNotes(string notes, bool addXHTMLMarkup = false)

Sets the value of the 'notes' subelement of this SBML object to a copy of the string notes.

The content of notes is copied, and any existing content of this object's 'notes' subelement is deleted.

The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type, is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements must be XHTML 1.0. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); however, readers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

The following code illustrates a very simple way of setting the notes using this method. Here, the object being annotated is the whole SBML document, but that is for illustration purposes only; you could of course use this same approach to annotate any other SBML component.

1 try:
2  sbmlDoc = SBMLDocument(3, 1)
3 except ValueError:
4  print('Could not create SBMLDocument object')
5  sys.exit(1)
6 
7 note = '<body xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>here is my note</p></body>'
8 
9 status = sbmlDoc.setNotes(note)
10 if status != LIBSBML_OPERATION_SUCCESS:
11  # Do something to handle the error here.
12  print('Unable to set notes on the SBML document object')
13  sys.exit(1)
Parameters
notesan XML string that is to be used as the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object.
addXHTMLMarkupa boolean indicating whether to wrap the contents of the notes argument with XHTML paragraph (<p>) tags. This is appropriate when the string in notes does not already containg the appropriate XHTML markup.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getNotesString()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
Note
Owing to the way that language interfaces are created in libSBML, this documentation may show methods that define default values for parameters with text that has the form parameter = value. This is not to be intepreted as a Python keyword argument; the use of a parameter name followed by an equals sign followed by a value is only meant to indicate a default value if the argument is not provided at all. It is not a keyword in the Python sense.

Method variant with the following signature:
setNotes(XMLNode notes)

Sets the value of the 'notes' subelement of this SBML object.

The content of notes is copied, and any existing content of this object's 'notes' subelement is deleted.

The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type, is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements must be XHTML 1.0. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); however, readers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

Parameters
notesan XML structure that is to be used as the content of the 'notes' subelement of this object.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getNotesString()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
appendNotes()
unsetNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
def libsbml.SBase.setSBOTerm (   self,
  args 
)
inherited

This method has multiple variants; they differ in the arguments they accept.

setSBOTerm(int value)   int
setSBOTerm(string sboid)   int

Each variant is described separately below.


Method variant with the following signature:
setSBOTerm(int value)

Sets the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute.

Beginning with SBML Level 2 Version 2, objects derived from SBase have an optional attribute named 'sboTerm' for supporting the use of the Systems Biology Ontology. In SBML proper, the data type of the attribute is a string of the form 'SBO:NNNNNNN', where 'NNNNNNN' is a seven digit integer number; libSBML simplifies the representation by only storing the 'NNNNNNN' integer portion. Thus, in libSBML, the 'sboTerm' attribute on SBase has data type int, and SBO identifiers are stored simply as integers.
SBO terms are a type of optional annotation, and each different class of SBML object derived from SBase imposes its own requirements about the values permitted for 'sboTerm'. More details can be found in SBML specifications for Level 2 Version 2 and above.
Parameters
valuethe NNNNNNN integer portion of the SBO identifier.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
setSBOTerm()

Method variant with the following signature:
setSBOTerm(string sboid)

Sets the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute by string.

Beginning with SBML Level 2 Version 2, objects derived from SBase have an optional attribute named 'sboTerm' for supporting the use of the Systems Biology Ontology. In SBML proper, the data type of the attribute is a string of the form 'SBO:NNNNNNN', where 'NNNNNNN' is a seven digit integer number; libSBML simplifies the representation by only storing the 'NNNNNNN' integer portion. Thus, in libSBML, the 'sboTerm' attribute on SBase has data type int, and SBO identifiers are stored simply as integers.
SBO terms are a type of optional annotation, and each different class of SBML object derived from SBase imposes its own requirements about the values permitted for 'sboTerm'. More details can be found in SBML specifications for Level 2 Version 2 and above.
Parameters
sboidthe SBO identifier string of the form 'SBO:NNNNNNN'.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
setSBOTerm()
def libsbml.ListOfSpeciesFeatures.size (   self)
size()   long
 
def libsbml.SBase.toSBML (   self)
inherited

Returns a string consisting of a partial SBML corresponding to just this object.

toSBML()   string
Returns
the partial SBML that describes this SBML object.
Warning
This is primarily provided for testing and debugging purposes. It may be removed in a future version of libSBML.
def libsbml.SBase.toXMLNode (   self)
inherited

Returns this element as an XMLNode.

toXMLNode()   XMLNode
Returns
this element as an XMLNode.
Warning
This operation is computationally expensive, because the element has to be fully serialized to a string and then parsed into the XMLNode structure. Attempting to convert a large tree structure (e.g., a large Model) may consume significant computer memory and time.
def libsbml.SBase.unsetAnnotation (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'annotation' subelement of this SBML object.

unsetAnnotation()   int

Whereas the SBase 'notes' subelement is a container for content to be shown directly to humans, the 'annotation' element is a container for optional software-generated content not meant to be shown to humans. Every object derived from SBase can have its own value for 'annotation'. The element's content type is XML type 'any', allowing essentially arbitrary well-formed XML data content.

SBML places a few restrictions on the organization of the content of annotations; these are intended to help software tools read and write the data as well as help reduce conflicts between annotations added by different tools. Please see the SBML specifications for more details.

Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. This particular function only does one thing irrespective of user input or object state, and thus will only return a single value:
See also
getAnnotation()
getAnnotationString()
isSetAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
setAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
appendAnnotation()
def libsbml.SBase.unsetCVTerms (   self)
inherited

Clears the list of CVTerm objects attached to this SBML object.

unsetCVTerms()   int
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
def libsbml.SBase.unsetId (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object.

unsetId()   int
The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier. The data type of 'id' is always SId or a type derived from that, such as UnitSId, depending on the object in question. All data types are defined as follows:
letter ::= 'a'..'z','A'..'Z'
digit  ::= '0'..'9'
idChar ::= letter | digit | '_'
SId    ::= ( letter | '_' ) idChar*
The characters ( and ) are used for grouping, the character * 'zero or more times', and the character | indicates logical 'or'. The equality of SBML identifiers is determined by an exact character sequence match; i.e., comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive manner. This applies to all uses of SId, SIdRef, and derived types.

Users need to be aware of some important API issues that are the result of the history of SBML and libSBML. Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, SBML defined 'id' and 'name' attributes on only a subset of SBML objects. To simplify the work of programmers, libSBML's API provided get, set, check, and unset on the SBase object class itself instead of on individual subobject classes. This made the get/set/etc. methods uniformly available on all objects in the libSBML API. LibSBML simply returned empty strings or otherwise did not act when the methods were applied to SBML objects that were not defined by the SBML specification to have 'id' or 'name' attributes. Additional complications arose with the rule and assignment objects: InitialAssignment, EventAssignment, AssignmentRule, and RateRule. In early versions of SBML, the rule object hierarchy was different, and in addition, then as now, they possess different attributes: 'variable' (for the rules and event assignments), 'symbol' (for initial assignments), or neither (for algebraic rules). Prior to SBML Level 3 Version 2, getId() would always return an empty string, and isSetId() would always return False for objects of these classes.

With the addition of 'id' and 'name' attributes on SBase in Level 3 Version 2, it became necessary to introduce a new way to interact with the attributes more consistently in libSBML to avoid breaking backward compatibility in the behavior of the original 'id' methods. For this reason, libSBML provides four functions (getIdAttribute(), setIdAttribute(), isSetIdAttribute(), and unsetIdAttribute()) that always act on the actual 'id' attribute inherited from SBase, regardless of the object's type. These new methods should be used instead of the older getId()/setId()/etc. methods unless the old behavior is somehow necessary. Regardless of the Level and Version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have identifiers). If the object in question does not posess an 'id' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the identifier to be set, nor will it read or write 'id' attributes for those objects.

Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
unsetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.unsetIdAttribute (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'id' attribute of this SBML object.

unsetIdAttribute()   int

Most (but not all) objects in SBML include two common attributes: 'id' and 'name'. The identifier given by an object's 'id' attribute value is used to identify the object within the SBML model definition. Other objects can refer to the component using this identifier.

Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getIdAttribute()
setIdAttribute()
isSetIdAttribute()
def libsbml.SBase.unsetMetaId (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'metaid' attribute of this SBML object.

unsetMetaId()   int
The optional attribute named 'metaid', present on every major SBML component type, is for supporting metadata annotations using RDF (Resource Description Format). The attribute value has the data type XML ID, the XML identifier type, which means each 'metaid' value must be globally unique within an SBML file. The latter point is important, because the uniqueness criterion applies across any attribute with type ID anywhere in the file, not just the 'metaid' attribute used by SBML—something to be aware of if your application-specific XML content inside the 'annotation' subelement happens to use the XML ID type. Although SBML itself specifies the use of XML ID only for the 'metaid' attribute, SBML-compatible applications should be careful if they use XML ID's in XML portions of a model that are not defined by SBML, such as in the application-specific content of the 'annotation' subelement. Finally, note that LibSBML does not provide an explicit XML ID data type; it uses ordinary character strings, which is easier for applications to support.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
def libsbml.SBase.unsetModelHistory (   self)
inherited

Unsets the ModelHistory object attached to this object.

unsetModelHistory()   int
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
Note
In SBML Level 2, model history annotations were only permitted on the Model element. In SBML Level 3, they are permitted on all SBML components derived from SBase.
def libsbml.SBase.unsetName (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'name' attribute of this SBML object.

unsetName()   int
In SBML Level 3 Version 2, the 'id' and 'name' attributes were moved to SBase directly, instead of being defined individually for many (but not all) objects. LibSBML has for a long time provided functions defined on SBase itself to get, set, and unset those attributes, which would fail or otherwise return empty strings if executed on any object for which those attributes were not defined. Now that all SBase objects define those attributes, those functions now succeed for any object with the appropriate level and version.

The 'name' attribute is optional and is not intended to be used for cross-referencing purposes within a model. Its purpose instead is to provide a human-readable label for the component. The data type of 'name' is the type string defined in XML Schema. SBML imposes no restrictions as to the content of 'name' attributes beyond those restrictions defined by the string type in XML Schema.

The recommended practice for handling 'name' is as follows. If a software tool has the capability for displaying the content of 'name' attributes, it should display this content to the user as a component's label instead of the component's 'id'. If the user interface does not have this capability (e.g., because it cannot display or use special characters in symbol names), or if the 'name' attribute is missing on a given component, then the user interface should display the value of the 'id' attribute instead. (Script language interpreters are especially likely to display 'id' instead of 'name'.)

As a consequence of the above, authors of systems that automatically generate the values of 'id' attributes should be aware some systems may display the 'id''s to the user. Authors therefore may wish to take some care to have their software create 'id' values that are: (a) reasonably easy for humans to type and read; and (b) likely to be meaningful, for example by making the 'id' attribute be an abbreviated form of the name attribute value.

An additional point worth mentioning is although there are restrictions on the uniqueness of 'id' values, there are no restrictions on the uniqueness of 'name' values in a model. This allows software applications leeway in assigning component identifiers.

Regardless of the level and version of the SBML, these functions allow client applications to use more generalized code in some situations (for instance, when manipulating objects that are all known to have names). If the object in question does not posess a 'name' attribute according to the SBML specification for the Level and Version in use, libSBML will not allow the name to be set, nor will it read or write 'name' attributes for those objects.

Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
See also
getName()
setName()
isSetName()
def libsbml.SBase.unsetNotes (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'notes' subelement of this SBML object.

unsetNotes()   int

The optional SBML element named 'notes', present on every major SBML component type, is intended as a place for storing optional information intended to be seen by humans. An example use of the 'notes' element would be to contain formatted user comments about the model element in which the 'notes' element is enclosed. Every object derived directly or indirectly from type SBase can have a separate value for 'notes', allowing users considerable freedom when adding comments to their models.

The format of 'notes' elements must be XHTML 1.0. To help verify the formatting of 'notes' content, libSBML provides the static utility method SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax(); however, readers are urged to consult the appropriate SBML specification document for the Level and Version of their model for more in-depth explanations. The SBML Level 2 and 3 specifications have considerable detail about how 'notes' element content must be structured.

Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. This particular function only does one thing irrespective of user input or object state, and thus will only return a single value:
See also
getNotesString()
isSetNotes()
setNotes()
setNotes()
appendNotes()
appendNotes()
SyntaxChecker.hasExpectedXHTMLSyntax()
def libsbml.SBase.unsetSBOTerm (   self)
inherited

Unsets the value of the 'sboTerm' attribute of this SBML object.

unsetSBOTerm()   int
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are:
def libsbml.SBase.unsetUserData (   self)
inherited

Unsets the user data of this element.

unsetUserData()   int
The user data associated with an SBML object can be used by an application developer to attach custom information to that object in the model. In case of a deep copy, this data will passed as-is. The data attribute will never be interpreted by libSBML.
Returns
integer value indicating success/failure of the function. The possible values returned by this function are: