BioFSharp.INSDC

Read/write support for INSDC XML records — BioProject, Study, Sample, Experiment, Run, Analysis, Submission, Receipt — as a direct dependency of BioFSharp.

Packages

Package	Purpose
BioFSharp.FileFormats.INSDC	C# type model auto-generated from the ENA SRA XSDs via dotnet-xscgen.
BioFSharp.IO.INSDC	F# wrapper exposing read / readString / write / writeString per INSDC entity.

The C# split exists because there is no F# equivalent of XmlSchemaClassGenerator. Both packages target netstandard2.0.

Repo layout

.
├── build/                                  FAKE build project
├── docs/                                   Placeholder — no fsdocs site is published from this repo
├── plans/implementation.md                 Authoritative implementation plan
├── src/
│   ├── BioFSharp.FileFormats.INSDC/        C# generated type model
│   │   ├── schemas/                          Committed ENA XSDs
│   │   └── Generated/                          Tool output — do not hand-edit
│   └── BioFSharp.IO.INSDC/                 F# wrapper
└── tests/BioFSharp.INSDC.Tests/            xunit tests, with committed ENA fixtures

Build

First-time setup:

dotnet tool restore     # installs the pinned dotnet-xscgen

Then:

build.cmd               # Windows
./build.sh              # macOS / Linux

Other targets:

build.cmd runtests
build.cmd pack
build.cmd regenerateInsdcTypes   # only when the XSDs change

Generated type naming

dotnet xscgen derives C# type names mechanically from the XSDs, which produces verbose names like AnalysisTypeAnalysisTypeTranscriptomeAssembly. We clean these up via src/BioFSharp.FileFormats.INSDC/schemas/typename-substitutions.txt, passed to the tool with --tnsf. The substitution file:

• Has one rule per line in the form A:<xscgen-default-name>=<substitute> (the A: prefix matches any type/member; lines starting with # are comments).
• Documents its naming rules (A–F) in a header block — read those before adding rules so renames stay consistent.
• Is the only place to change a generated type's name; never hand-edit files under Generated/.

To add or change a substitution:

1. Edit typename-substitutions.txt. The left side is the name xscgen would emit without any substitution (the original XSD-derived path); the right side is the desired C# identifier. Pick a substitute that does not collide with another type — xscgen falls back to a generic name (e.g. <Name>Item) if the substitute clashes with an existing default.
2. Run build.cmd regenerateInsdcTypes (or ./build.sh regenerateInsdcTypes).
3. Commit both the updated substitution file and the regenerated files under src/BioFSharp.FileFormats.INSDC/Generated/.

Caveats:

• xscgen's substitution file does not accept regex or dotted/nested names — Foo.Bar would emit invalid C# (class Foo.Bar). Substitutes must be flat C# identifiers.
• Stay consistent with the rules already documented in the file's header. If a rename does not fit any existing rule, add a new lettered rule alongside the others.

Contributing

See AGENTS.md for repo conventions and plans/implementation.md for the implementation roadmap.

Documentation lives in the base BioFSharp docs rather than in this repo.