I encountered this while doing some validator testing. This also applies when the datasets are defined with specific inheritance, eg:

datasets:
- data_type_def: D1
  dtype: numeric
  dims:
  - dim1
  - dim2
  shape:
  - null
  - null
  doc: a base dataset
  attributes:
  - name: foo
    dtype: text
    doc: an attribute
- data_type_def: D2
  data_type_inc: D1
  doc: an inherited dataset

Only the attribute foo will be validated on a builder for type D2. dtype, dims, and shape are not passed down.

It looks like the default inheritance passes down specification elements defined on the dictionary accessible via BaseStorageSpec.attributes. However, DatasetSpec sets shape, dims, and dtype in the base dict that ConstructableDict inherits from (self['shape'] self['dims'], and self['dtype'] when accessed from within DatasetSpec), rather than on the .attributes field via BaseStorageSpec.set_attribute('shape', ...), etc.

It looks like the current implementation of #321 treats this by passing down the shape, etc of child attributes when a parent is inherited (e.g. PatchClampSeries.data.shape is passed to CurentClampSeries.data.shape). However, I'm not sure that would work for the above situation, even if we defined a group holding D2 as below:

groups:
- data_type_def: G1
  doc: a group container
  datasets:
  - name: my_d2
    data_type_def: D2
    doc: a D2 dataset on group G1

It looks like #321 might be a bit stale, so maybe a lot has changed between then and hdmf 2.5.1. And I'm not entirely sure I'm clear on how everything is supposed to happen with spec inheritance, so maybe there's something I did wrong with my tests. But it'd be good to validate that #321 does resolve the above situation.

To be a bit more clear, here's a test case I was working from:

1. create a spec for D1 and D2 and save to file.

import os
from hdmf.spec import NamespaceBuilder, export_spec, AttributeSpec, DatasetSpec, GroupSpec


namespace_name = 'foo'
ns_builder = NamespaceBuilder(doc='Test namespace', name=namespace_name, version='0.1.0')

d1_spec = DatasetSpec(doc='d1', data_type_def='D1', shape=[None, None], dims=['dim1', 'dim2'], dtype='numeric',
                      attributes=[AttributeSpec(name='foo', doc='an attribute', dtype='text')])
d2_spec = DatasetSpec(doc='d2', data_type_def='D2', data_type_inc='D1')
g1_spec = GroupSpec(doc='g1', data_type_def='G1', datasets=[d2_spec])

output_dir = 'test-spec'
if not os.path.exists(output_dir):
    os.mkdir(output_dir)
    
export_spec(ns_builder, [d1_spec, d2_spec, g1_spec], str(output_dir))

2. load and compare the specs for D1, D2, and G1:

from hdmf import common

common.load_namespaces(os.path.join(output_dir, f'{namespace_name}.namespace.yaml'))
ns_catalog = common.get_manager().namespace_catalog
ns = ns_catalog.get_namespace(name=namespace_name)

print(ns.get_spec('D1'))
print(ns.get_spec('D2'))
print(ns.get_spec('G1'))

Output:

{'shape': [None, None],
 'dims': ['dim1', 'dim2'],
 'dtype': 'numeric',
 'doc': 'd1',
 'data_type_def': 'D1',
 'attributes': [{'doc': 'an attribute', 'name': 'foo', 'dtype': 'text'}]}

{'doc': 'd2',
 'data_type_inc': 'D1',
 'data_type_def': 'D2',
 'attributes': [{'doc': 'an attribute', 'name': 'foo', 'dtype': 'text'}]}

{'datasets': [{'doc': 'd2',
   'data_type_inc': 'D1',
   'data_type_def': 'D2',
   'attributes': [{'doc': 'an attribute', 'name': 'foo', 'dtype': 'text'}]}],
 'doc': 'g1',
 'data_type_def': 'G1'}

I would expect D2 to have shape, dims, and dtype available. I also am not sure #321 would fix the situation of G1.