[Semediawiki-user] Query syntax poll

[Markus K. <ma...@se...>]

Hi all,

I have a proposal for a simplification in #ask query syntax that I would like 
to get some feedback on.

If you currently ask for property chains, you need something like the 
following:

{{#ask: [[works at::<q>[[located in::<q>[[population::>1000000]]</q>]]</q>]]}}

to find someone working at an organisation located in a place with more than 
1000000 inhabitants. The many [[ and <q> are sure annoying.

My proposal is to instead allow writing

{{#ask: [[works at.located in.population::>1000000]] }}

with exactly the same interpretation as above.

Effects:
* "." in property names become problematic (though some escape can be provided 
to allow them),
* the syntax becomes shorter, and maybe also more readable.

Would that be an improvement? Other comments? (There is also another issue 
regarding the syntax with <q>, but I will have to check what can be done 
there before proposing alternatives.)

Cheers

Markus

-- 
Markus Krötzsch
Semantic MediaWiki    http://semantic-mediawiki.org
http://korrekt.org    ma...@se...