[Semediawiki-user] enhancement: explode format in query results

[S P. <in...@sk...>]

Summary: adding parts=exploded parameter for inline queries with 
templates would make the template receive the separate parts of each 
value, similar to service links.


In the thread "How to: Using parameters in queries", Robert Murphy wrote:
> I'm still griping because n-ary is handled
> with such difficulty.  If the long n-ary data was passed individually
> then it could be handled with nothing more than Extension:Parser
> Functions.

I have a hard time figuring out the specifics of what you want, but I 
think you point out an important limitation.

With format=template, one has no control over the individual field 
values passed to your template, it's just the wiki text of each item. 
You've found that you don't get the individual pieces of a many-valued 
property so you can process them.  Another user might want to get the 
number and units of a linear value separately.

SMW already deals with this in a different context.  Most datatypes 
already can provide the individual elements of a value to Service links 
<http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Service_links#Information_passed_for_each_placeholder>

So, if inline queries had a new "parts=exploded" option to send the same 
individual elements of each value to a template, you and others would 
have more formatting control.

There's currently a glitch in this: many-valued properties don't 
currently provide individual bits of a value for service links (bug 
14426, I provided a patch).

It's not as simple as it sounds.  E.g. some parts that datatypes return 
for service links are URL-encoded because service links are specifically 
for fabricating hyperlinks.

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=S Page