I wouldn't know, but it sounds plausible.
-Yaron
On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Jeff Thompson <j...@thefirst.org> wrote:
> 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
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> This SF.net email is sponsored by:
>> SourcForge Community
>> SourceForge wants to tell your story.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Semediawiki-devel mailing list
>> Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel
>>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:
SourcForge Community
SourceForge wants to tell your story.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
_______________________________________________
Semediawiki-devel mailing list
Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel
