Forward and backward compatibility

We strive to make each version of our software compatible with all the historic data you acquired. However, if you try to look through the dataset with your own software, you may find that on occasion certain fields may be missing.

This is because we are constantly improving our software and adding new features. As such, older datasets may not contain all the fields that are present in the latest version of the software. However, we do our best to ensure that all the core fields are always present.

We recommend you use defensive programming such as:

• Always check the value of __owl_version__.

• Checking if the key is present in the metadata before fetching it.

• Using default values when a field is missing.

For example python allows one to use dict.get('key', default_value) to safely get a value from a dictionary.

>>> metadata = your_function_to_load_metadata('metadata.json')
>>> value = metadata.get('some_key', default_value)