Morphological Data Representation

[Leigh Dodds]

This nicely demonstrates the point that the syntax is
only a way to encode a particular model. I'd previously
cast the same basic Lepidoptera data into XML (with
some additional data, such as images) using XDelta:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/delta/lep.xml

I'm sure the following is wrong in places and/or overly simplistic,
and deliberately so:

A Character has
 - a Character Type (one of Ordered or Unordered or Real, or ...)
 - a Character Identifier (a number)
 - a Short Description (free text)
 - a Long Description (free text)
 - an Order Identifier (a number)
 - a State Descriptor (free text)

A State has
  - a State Value (free text)
  - a State Identifier (a number)
  - an Order Identifier

An Item has
  - An Item Type (free text)
  - An Item Identifier (a number)
  - A Description (free text)
  - One or more Characteristics (observed values of states for
    specific characters)

Characters describe a list of properties for some Type of Thing
might have. States describe the list of (observed) values
of that property for a specific Type of Thing (avoiding the
word Class as it's an overloaded term).

An Item is the specific instances of those properties, with
some specific Thing.

What did I get wrong?

L.