On 13/07/11 20:23, Günther Zehetner wrote: > Hi, > > Does this mean for a record property like [[Item::Name;Source]] where Name > and Source are defined as property String it is in SMW 1.6 not possible > anymore to see in the database which value is used for Name and which for > Source? So either Name;Source or Source;Name is returned and no way to know > which is which???
That depends on the declaration that you use for Item. The change in Type:Record is that it now stores values by /property name/ (as everything else in SMW) and not by /position/. So if you declare a Record like [[has fields::String;String]] then the two values would both be assigned to the new builtin datatype-named Property:String. No order would be stored and you would get any order when querying. However, you can fix this easily: just create new properties of type String, e.g. Property:Name and Property:Source, and change the declaration of Item to [[has fields::Name;Source]] You could also call the properties String1 and String2 if you have no better name for them. But the idea is that using human-readable names helps to make Records more user-friendly. For example, it is possible to query directly for values of property Name while this would have been impossible with the old Records. Overall, all browsing, search, and query features of SMW will work more smoothly with Records. (Basically, Record values behave like internal wiki pages that have the property values of the record). The new system is strictly more powerful than the old one (since you can simulate the old one using dummy properties like String1, Page2, etc. while you can query these properties in the new system only). It creates some inconvenience during transition, but the new datatype-named builtin properties should minimize this. The next step will be to create further datatypes that can act as containers for arbitrary property-value pairs. Record only works with a fixed list of input properties (main advantage: the property does not need to be named when using it). But there is really no reason in SMW now to have this restriction. One could as well have arbitrary property-value "groups" that need no prior declaration of the allowed properties. SMW already supports this internally -- all that we need is a syntax for writing such groups. Regards Markus > >> The new system will help smooth transition for recent >> changes in >> Type:Record. Records are no longer declared with a list of >> types but >> with a list of properties (which can be any user-defined >> property). With >> the new type-named properties, the old declarations will >> still work >> (exception: if the same type is used more than once, the >> order among the >> associated values is not reliably preserved; you should use >> another more >> specific property for avoiding duplicates). > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AppSumo Presents a FREE Video for the SourceForge Community by Eric Ries, the creator of the Lean Startup Methodology on "Lean Startup Secrets Revealed." This video shows you how to validate your ideas, optimize your ideas and identify your business strategy. http://p.sf.net/sfu/appsumosfdev2dev _______________________________________________ Semediawiki-devel mailing list Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel
