Draft Spec mark 2

Mike Dallwitz md at ENTO.CSIRO.AU
Mon Sep 4 10:45:57 CEST 2000


> From: Kevin Thiele <kevin.thiele at PI.CSIRO.AU>
> To: TDWG-SDD at USOBI.ORG

> The basic unit (atom) of a description is a statement of the form
> "For item x, element y has Value z"

In DELTA, character values in a description can't be separated from the
'attribute' which contains them, without losing information. This is because
the order of the values, and the words 'or', 'and', and 'to' which may
connect them, are significant. Also, the position of a qualifier (before or
after a value) may be significant, and some qualifiers, e.g. 'reliability',
may apply to the attribute as a whole rather than to a particular value.

Example:

   5,3/3&1<when infected with virus>/<occasionally>2<@reliability 3>

 = Flowers red, or red and white (when infected with virus), or
   occasionally yellow.

This doesn't seem to be accommodated in the proposal - at least, it's not
spelled out.

--

Mike Dallwitz

CSIRO Entomology, GPO Box 1700, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia
Phone: +61 2 6246 4075   Fax: +61 2 6246 4000
Email: md at ento.csiro.au  Internet: biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/




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