Add DynamicTable compatibility validators

[ehennestad]

Motivation

Adds reusable argument-validation functions for DynamicTable and VectorData that accept the type across compatible namespaces — types.hdmf_common and the legacy types.core. The error message is specific to the currently generated NWB schema version, to avoid confusion about hdmf_common vs core namespace.

Example of current validation:

types.util.dynamictable.nwbToTable(table())

Error message:

Error using types.util.dynamictable.nwbToTable
Expected input to be one of these types:

types.core.DynamicTable, types.hdmf_common.DynamicTable

Instead its type was table.

This message is not specific to which NWB schema is currently generated/active. Unless someone is working with legacy schema versions, the types.core.DynamicTable expectation is misleading.

Example with updated validation function:

For current schema version:

generateCore()
matnwb.common.validation.mustBeDynamicTable(table())

Error message:

Error using matnwb.common.validation.mustBeDynamicTable
Value must be of type types.hdmf_common.DynamicTable but was of type table.

For older schema version:

nwbClearGenerated()
clear all
generateCore('2.1.0')
matnwb.common.validation.mustBeDynamicTable(table())

Error message:

Error using matnwb.common.validation.mustBeDynamicTable
Value must be of type types.core.DynamicTable but was of type table.

What changed

• matnwb.common.validation.internal.mustBeCompatibleType (new) — validates a value against a neurodata type name across both compatible namespaces (core/hdmf_common).
• matnwb.common.validation.mustBeDynamicTable / mustBeVectorData — now delegate to the shared helper.

How to test the behavior?

runtests("tests.unit.common.ValidatorTest")

Checklist

• Have you ensured the PR description clearly describes the problem and solutions?
• Have you checked to ensure that there aren't other open or previously closed Pull Requests for the same change?
• If this PR fixes an issue, is the first line of the PR description fix #XX where XX is the issue number?

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 95.37%. Comparing base (d122320) to head (814df61).

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #825      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   95.36%   95.37%   +0.01%     
==========================================
  Files         214      215       +1     
  Lines        7550     7569      +19     
==========================================
+ Hits         7200     7219      +19     
  Misses        350      350              

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds reusable MATLAB argument-validation helpers to treat legacy types.core and current types.hdmf_common classes as compatible, enabling arguments-block validation for DynamicTable utilities across schema versions.

Changes:

• Introduces matnwb.common.validation.internal.mustBeCompatibleType to validate a neurodata type name across both types.hdmf_common and legacy types.core.
• Refactors mustBeDynamicTable and mustBeVectorData to delegate validation to the shared helper.
• Improves the validator error message specificity by reporting the expected fully-qualified type name that exists on the MATLAB path.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

File	Description
+matnwb/+common/+validation/mustBeVectorData.m	Delegates VectorData validation to the new compatibility helper.
+matnwb/+common/+validation/mustBeDynamicTable.m	Delegates DynamicTable validation to the new compatibility helper.
+matnwb/+common/+validation/+internal/mustBeCompatibleType.m	Adds shared validator that accepts compatible generated types across namespaces and differentiates “wrong type” vs “types missing from path”.

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