On Apr 9, 2005, at 9:23 AM, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
Sure it's easy to add a property 'handle' to a node and model it that
way, but it would be way more elegant (and more future proof, since
I'm already thinking about exporting that content as RDF, were the
URIs are king) if it was possible for JCR to allow *you* to pick the
UUID for the node.
Why don't you just set a property for an external reference name?
So, my question is: is it possible to specify the node UUID
externally? (as long as local unicity is guaranteed, obviously)
Not really, since fast implementations will depend on it being a
fixed-length number (internally) rather than a string. In any case,
I would think that you would eventually want multiple persistent
identifiers for a resource, particularly since some identifiers
must change when the bits change whereas others only change when
the semantics change.
BTW, UUIDs are not globally unique over time -- only for a decade
or so based on common implementations, and even less than that if
the implementation is stupid. They are completely unsuitable as
persistent names.
....Roy
