Is an "internal object" similar to an RDF blank node?
Yaron Koren wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The long recent discussion(s) on the SMW users list about n-ary
> relations, many-typed properties and the like got me thinking about what
> it would actually take to add support to SMW for what I call n-ary
> relations and some people call internal properties: properties that can
> be associated together in a free-form way. Having thought about it some
> more, I now believe it can be done fairly straightforwardly.
>
> I'm going on the assumption that double-brackets and the like are on the
> way out, to be replaced by parser functions, and so I'm imagining a
> parser function called, say, #internal_set, that would be called in the
> following way:
>
> {{#internal_set:main_property|prop1=val1|prop2=val2|...}}
>
> An example would be:
>
> {{#internal_set:Is leader of|Has name=Charles de Gaulle|Has start date=1
> June 1958|Has end date=8 January 1959}}
>
> This parser function would create an "internal object" for the page from
> which it was called. The first property would link between the main page
> and that internal object, but - and this is important to note - it would
> link *from* the internal object, *to* the main page; which seems less
> logical than the other way around, but makes querying easier (and fits
> in with my general philosophy that children should link to parents). The
> other arguments would be all the other properties of the internal
> object, and their values.
>
> I believe that what's really needed to get all this working is a new SMW
> type for "internal objects", which might be called "SMWInternalValue".
> Like SMWWikiPageValue, it would allow properties pointing out from it,
> but unlike SMWWikiPageValue, it wouldn't represent an actual URI in the
> wiki; its printed value would just be a string that might look like
> "France#1" or "France#2". And its name would never show up in queries -
> a query like:
>
> {{#ask:[[Is leader of.Has continent::Europe]]|? Has name|? Has start
> date|? Has end date}}
>
> ...would show the "leader" information for all countries in Europe, but
> it wouldn't show the "main" column - just the three for the actual values.
>
> (Or maybe the internal-object column should show up as well, by default
> - I don't know.)
>
> The "SMWInternalValue" would also be unique in that no properties would
> point to it - it would only have its own properties, linking it to the
> page it's on as well as to its other values.
>
> So the work needed would be to create this parser function, and the
> corresponding new type, and make sure that all the usual functionality -
> adding, deleting, querying - worked with it.
>
> In any case, that's my idea. Any thoughts?
>
> -Yaron
>
>
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