[Tdwg-guid] Simple LSID resolver

[Steven Perry]

Hi Rod,

This is pretty cool.  What language is it in?  What kind of server does 
it require (application server, apache, etc.)? 

When I tried to put in an LSID that I knew didn't exist, I got an XML 
parsing error.  No worries, since this is an early prototype, but I was 
wondering if you're planning on trapping these kinds of errors and 
returning an HTTP status code like 204 (NO_CONTENT), 404 (NOT_FOUND), or 
410 (GONE), or if you had something else in mind.

I've also been thinking about an HTTP-GET based LSID resolution gateway 
that might be exposed as a service.  It could support several additional 
functions besides (the default) getMetadata():

getAuthorityInfo :: given an LSID, return information (in RDF) about the 
authority extracted from the authority metadata
getData:: might work a bit differently from the spec in that it always 
sends through HTTP and it tries to set the correct mime type.

However getMetadata is the critical function and these others may not, 
upon more reflection, make much sense.

Given that we want to be able to integrate with existing semantic web 
apps and tools that can't currently understand the LSID resolution 
process, I think we'll come to depend upon these kinds of services.  
They also provide convenience to developers who are working with 
languages that don't yet have a resolution client API.  It might be nice 
to work out how such a service ought to behave and present it to TAG.

-Steve


Roderic Page wrote:
> It was good to see everybody who made it to sunny Edinburgh over the  
> weekend.
>
> I've put together a very simple LSID resolver that returns RDF metadata  
> for a LSID. I wanted something very simple, so all you do is stick your  
> LSID on the end of http://lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk/, e.g.
>
> http://lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk/urn:lsid:ubio.org:namebank:2735664
>
> http://lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk/urn:lsid:lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk: 
> predicate:isBasionymOf
>
> It's far from bullet proof, and not as pretty as other resolvers.  
> However, it means you see the RDF straight away, and if you wanted to  
> aggregate the RDF for a LSID you could use this to do the resolution  
> for you.
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> ----------------------------------------
> Professor Roderic D. M. Page
> Editor, Systematic Biology
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