descriptorsof

Descriptorsof is a term used to denote the collection of descriptors that characterize an entity. A descriptor is an attribute, tag, or metadata item that conveys information about a subject, such as its name, type, constraints, provenance, or relationships. The phrase descriptorsof is commonly seen as a conventional label for a function, method, or query that returns the set of descriptors for a given object.

It is not a standardized keyword in any single language or framework; rather, it appears in informal discourse, API documentation, and academic writing to name the concept of retrieving descriptive metadata. The term emphasizes the act of listing or exposing the descriptive elements associated with a target.

Applications include programming libraries that expose descriptorsof(obj) to enable introspection, data catalogs that summarize datasets with their descriptors, and knowledge graphs that attach descriptor properties to entities for search and interoperability. In each domain, the returned descriptor structure may be a map or record listing attribute names, data types, constraints, and references to related entities.

Examples: In pseudocode, descriptors = descriptorsof(user) yields a map such as { name: "string", age: "integer", roles: "array<string>" }. In linguistic or taxonomic work, descriptors might include lexical features or semantic categories attached to an item. While useful as a descriptive mechanism, descriptorsof is not a standardized term and its exact semantics vary by context. See also descriptors, metadata, schema, and attribute descriptors.