Ambiguity with filters, array or dict. Suggestion

[2trc]

Hi, I'm really thankful to this project and all the work you've put in. It's surprising there is no alternative to AnyCluster in server-side clustering area in Python/Django. Kudos!

Regarding filtering, I've noticed some ambiguity in the code (JS vs Python) and obviously the docs.

In the method constructFilterstring in MapCluster.py, filters is treated as a dictionary which is in-line with the docs

for column in filters:
            filterparams = filters[column]
...

However, in anycluster.js, filters is treated as if it was an array

addFilters: function(newfilters){
	
	for (var f=0; f<newfilters.length; f++){
			
		this.filters.push(newfilters[f]);
	}

	this.clearMarkers = true;
		
},
	
removeFilters: function(activefilters){
	
	for (i=0; i<= activefilters.length; i++){
	
		delete this.filters[ activefilters[i] ];
	}
	
	this.clearMarkers = true;
	
},

I believe this is a problem.

I would actually suggest, if I may, the array approach. It'd enable filtering multiple times on the same column. It is less limiting than the alternative and one use case is when you'll like to filter on a range e.g. a date range. With the current implementation it'd be really hard to achieve without modifying AnyCluster anyways. I've been using this approach in my current project.

What do you think?

[biodiv]

Thank you for your input and your thoughts. I agree that filters should be of the same type in JS and Python if possible. It haven't been into anycluster for a while but currently your suggestion makes sense to me and seems to improve anyclusters functionality. If you already have something that works and uses arrays in python, a pull request would be great. Otherwise I will dig into it when I have the time to do so.

[2trc]

@biodiv done! See https://github.com/biodiv/anycluster/pull/31 It'd be good if you could try it out in your environment

[2trc]

It'd be even more intuitive to move one step further and have the filterObj format like

var filterObj = [
   {"column": db_column_name, "values": value, "operator": operator_string }
]

wouldn't that be cleaner?

[biodiv]

The same layout came to my mind when reviewing the pull request - your suggested layout would be great

[biodiv]

the suggested format is now implemented