presynapticPopulation and postsynapticPopulation in projection are not parse as refcomponents but as attributes

[adrianq]

When parsing a neuroml doc with jlems, presynapticPopulation and postsynapticPopulation in projection component should be refcomponents. For instance, synapse attribute in a projection component is parse as a refcomponent. However pre and post synaptic population are just attributes.

@pgleeson I have created this issue in this repo as I guess it has to do with neuroml comp definition but maybe it makes more sense to move it to another repo.

[pgleeson]

@adrianq, not really... The presynapticPopulation and postsynapticPopulation are defined using Path:

<ComponentType name="projection" ...>
    ...
    <ComponentReference name="synapse" type="baseSynapse"/>
    <Path name="presynapticPopulation"/>
    <Path name="postsynapticPopulation"/>
</ComponentType>

The difference when a component is referenced with Path and ComponentReference is:

• Path: there is an existing component in place and this comp will be referring to it here
• ComponentReference: there is an existing component, but this comp will be creating a personal copy of that for use here

So synapse will point to an existing syn component, but a new instance of this syn will be created at runtime inside this projection; pre/post pop will point to the existing populations, but they won't be copied.

As I say, this distinction is important at runtime, but not necessarily crucial for when the model is being converted into Geppetto equivalents. In each case if someone is reading/editing the projection, they may wish to see/link to/edit the original synapse or pre/post population. So maybe handle Path just like you handle ComponentReference....

@tarelli