Types of data

Jean-Marc Vanel jmvanel at FREE.FR
Thu Nov 25 09:02:28 CET 1999


You wrote:
leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density

This is exactly an XPath ( http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath.html ) query, it will
select all <density> elements children of <indumentum> elements children of ...
etc.

Other example:
lamina[ancestor(species)//petal[contains(./text(),'white')]]
will select <lamina> elements descendant of <species> elements, whose <petal>
element's text content has 'white' string in it.

The whole thing is to set a botanical vocabulary, allowing indumentum and
disallowing (e.g.) pilosity. This is a secondary issue wether this vocabulary
will be a DTD, an XML Schema, or a RDF Schema. Anyway, there are tools like XML
Authority of Extensibility to translate beetwen these formats (not yet RDF
Schema, alas), so we can provide all Schema dialects. This is what most business
Consortia do.

For the relational database fans, it is easy to export a many-columns table using
a XSLT (http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt.html) transform, with columns names exactly
like this:
leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density

For the DELTA fans, the principle is to associate a character number to each
leaf, like
leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density
of the document Schema. It can be done even without DTD/Schema, see
http://jmvanel.free.fr/Samples/DisplayDescriptions/speciesGUI.htm, where I list
all the unique nested tags names in the document; this is what I call the
implicit Schema. I do Javascript with the Document Object Model.

I have proposals to extend the DELTA system; this will be another thread.

see for more details:
http://jmvanel.free.fr/

Regards
Jean-Marc

Kevin Thiele a écrit :

>  Is the entity/property/value schema restricted to 3
> levels?

...........

> What to do about

> leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density.
> I agree that a hierarchically structured schema may be wonderful, but in a
> biological context I wouldn't like to see it constrained at 3 levels just
> because that's what existing computer formats do.
>
> Cheers - k

--------------7CE9A1EDDF0E2FAE8F10EDF5
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
You wrote:
<br>leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density
<p>This is exactly an XPath ( <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath.html">http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath.html</a>
) query, it will select all &lt;density> elements children of &lt;indumentum>
elements children of ... etc.
<p>Other example:
<br>lamina[ancestor(species)//petal[contains(./text(),'white')]]
<br>will select &lt;lamina> elements descendant of &lt;species> elements,
whose &lt;petal>
<br>element's text content has 'white' string in it.
<p>The whole thing is to set a botanical vocabulary, allowing indumentum
and disallowing (e.g.) pilosity. This is a secondary issue wether this
vocabulary will be a DTD, an XML Schema, or a RDF Schema. Anyway, there
are tools like XML Authority of <a href="http://www.extensibility.com">Extensibility</a>
to translate beetwen these formats (not yet RDF Schema, alas), so we can
provide all Schema dialects. This is what most business Consortia do.
<p>For the relational database fans, it is easy to export a many-columns
table using a XSLT (<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt.html">http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt.html</a>)
transform, with columns names exactly like this:
<br>leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density
<p>For the DELTA fans, the principle is to associate a character number
to each leaf, like
<br>leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density
<br>of the document Schema. It can be done even without DTD/Schema, see
<a href="http://jmvanel.free.fr/Samples/DisplayDescriptions/speciesGUI.htm">http://jmvanel.free.fr/Samples/DisplayDescriptions/speciesGUI.htm</a>,
where I list all the unique nested tags names in the document; this is
what I call the implicit Schema. I do Javascript with the Document Object
Model.
<p>I have proposals to extend the DELTA system; this will be another thread.
<p>see for more details:
<br><a href="http://jmvanel.free.fr/">http://jmvanel.free.fr/</a>
<p>Regards
<br>Jean-Marc
<p>Kevin Thiele a &eacute;crit :
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>&nbsp;Is the entity/property/value schema restricted
to 3
<br>levels?</blockquote>
...........
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>What to do about</blockquote>

<blockquote TYPE=CITE>leaf/lamina/abaxial_surface/vein_islands/indumentum/density.
<br>I agree that a hierarchically structured schema may be wonderful, but
in a
<br>biological context I wouldn't like to see it constrained at 3 levels
just
<br>because that's what existing computer formats do.
<p>Cheers - k</blockquote>
</html>


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