From autoplot.org

Presently the DataSourceFactory objects get a URL and return a DataSource object. This means that though Autoplot uses URIs, URIS like

 vap+data:1,2,3,4,5,6,7
 vap+jbdc:mysql://192.168.0.203:3306/db=orbits&table=cluster1&column=orbitnum&dep0=time
 vap+dat:spawn://home/jbf/readers/cluster.sh

are excluded.

1. Proposal

DataSourceFactory should get a URI and should return a DataSource.

DataSource just has a getDataSet(monitor) method, so this API is fine.

AbstractDataSource is URL-based. Should the subclasses see URI or the string after the scheme (scheme-specific part)?

TimeSeriesBrowse is URL based and there's kludgy code in there to add and remove the vap+dat scheme.

AggregatingDataSource is URL based and should use fully-resolved URIs

2. Issues Encountered

2.1. Spaces in Filenames

Not surprisingly, spaces in filenames cause problems again. This is a break-it-to-fix-it, because surely the situation is better now without the URL<-->URI conversions as well. Fortunately a number of once-working URIs are documented and we can fix the problem. Clearly the spaces logic will be handled in the conversion to and from URIs, since URIs are pretty specific about how to encode spaces. The pluses-are-spaces logic should be implemented at the presentation layer...