Update handling of colnames

[oruebel]

This PR updates the handling of the DynamicTable.colNames to: 1) avoid the need for specifying colNames at the beginning and 2) to allow us to dynamically add columns to a DynamicTable (even one that was read from a file)

Related issues

Fix #107
Fix #150
Fix #129

Fixed writing of variable-length string attributes and VectorData columns:

• Fixed writing of Attributes that are arrays of variable-length
  • Write string array attributes as variable length string arrays instead of fixed length string arrays
  • Updated BaseIO.createAttribute for string arrays to explicitly allow us to force overwrite of existing attributes and updated HDF5IO.createAttribute accordingly. HDF5 does not support expanding attributes in the same way it does for datasets so we need to delete the existing attribute and overwrite it with a new one with the same name.
• Fixed writing of variable-length strings columns via DynamicTable.add_column to avoid unnecessary iteration and use writeDataBlock directly
• Fixed data types for string columns in ElectrodeTable to use variable length strings instead of fixed length strings

Improved handling of Status

• Return the Status for DynamicTable functions that perform write operations (e.g,. initialize, finalize, add_column etc.) as well as relevant other classes, e.g., Data, VectorData, Container ...
• Defined && and || operator for the Status enum to simplify combining multiple Status checks

Updated handling of colNames to correctly handle dynamic adding of columns

• Delayed writing of colNames to the end by adding DynamicTable.finalize akin to the existing ElectrodeTable.finalize. This allows for columns to be added to the DynamicTable
  • Updated DynamicTable.finalize to overwrite column names to correctly support appending of columns to existing tables
• Updated DynamicTable constructor to read the existing column names if they exist from the file so that we can append new columns to existing tables

Updated unit tests

• Updated unit tests for HDF5IO.createAttribute
• Added new unit tests for DynamicTable
• Enhanced ElectrodeTable unit tests to appropriately check for the status of write operations and fix existing failing tests due to missing Device and ElectrodeGroup

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 93.94813% with 21 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 93.23%. Comparing base (00a529c) to head (d69d55c).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
src/io/hdf5/HDF5IO.cpp	66.66%	16 Missing ⚠️
src/nwb/hdmf/table/DynamicTable.cpp	91.89%	3 Missing ⚠️
src/Types.hpp	50.00%	2 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #149      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   93.20%   93.23%   +0.02%     
==========================================
  Files          62       64       +2     
  Lines        4328     4595     +267     
  Branches      268      271       +3     
==========================================
+ Hits         4034     4284     +250     
- Misses        284      301      +17     
  Partials       10       10              

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[oruebel]

@stephprince this PR is ready for review

[stephprince]

Looks great! Thanks. I just had a question about the overwriting of variable length strings but all of the electrodes table and column changes look good to me.

[stephprince]

Looks good, I am just wondering if there was a specific reason to add the overwrite functionality on this function instead of the version of the createAttribute function defined below:

Status HDF5IO::createAttribute(const std::vector<const char*>& data,
                               const std::string& path,
                               const std::string& name,
                               const SizeType& maxSize)

Since that version is used during both single string and string array attribute creation and performs similar checks for the attribute already existing?

[stephprince]

From my understanding this function writes variable length string arrays:

aqnwb/src/io/hdf5/HDF5IO.cpp

Line 780 in d69d55c

H5type.setSize(H5T_VARIABLE);

However, I think it is maybe unclear since a maximum size is accepted, but this parameter is then overwritten. I'm not sure why that is the case....

[stephprince]

Suggested change

	* @param description The description of the table (default: "metadata about
	* @param description The description of the table (default: "metadata about extracellular electrodes")