RE: [TM4J-users] ID

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

Hi Rich,

> > Nope, it was a bug. Thanks for the report.
>
> No problem, great to get such speedy replies.
>
> I need to sort out the external-xlinked files trick referred to
> in my first
> mail.  Could you point me at the best place to do it and I'll have a go at
> stitching it myself?  I'll send you the code rather than do the CVS thing
> right now.  If it's being done already, I'll happily wait. :)
>

I think that should now be fixed in CVS. The fix was to make the dummy topic
get the URI of the referenced topic as its resourceID property. Now, what I
haven't checked is if the engine then correctly merges the dummy topic with
the real thing when it is encountered - is that the problem you are having,
or is there something else that I'm missing ?

> My application design needs:
> a) One file with definitions of various topic types such as idea
> and person.
> b) One file with a basic structure that all people share, and refers to
> topic in a).
> c) A file per person who wants to design their own structures.  They might
> refer to topics in a) and later to each other.
>
> I could fiddle the design but I quite like it. :)

Looks good to me! I would suggest that you create Published Subject
Identifiers for the topics types declared in (a) - that way it is possible
to create a reference like this:

<topic>
  <instanceOf><subjectIndicatorRef
xlink:href="http://psi.csir.com/mindmap/idea"></instanceOf>
  <baseName><baseNameString>My Cool Idea</baseNameString></baseName>
</topic>

Note that the URI does not have to resolve to another topic, but when a
topic such as:

<topic>
  <subjectIdentity><subjectIndicatorRef
xlink:href="http://psi.csir.com/mindmap/idea"></subjectIdentity>
  <baseName><baseNameString>Idea</baseNameString></baseName>
</topic>

is found in a topic map, then the dummy topic created for the type of the
first topic should get merged with the second topic.

As I type this, I start to feel less and less sure that TM4J actually *does*
this...if it doesn't, the code at fault will be in XTMBuilder.java - when
processing a reference which is found to be a subjectIndicatorRef, it
should:
	a) See if it already has a topic with that subject indicator - if so, use
that for the type and we are done
      b) Create a dummy topic, assign it an object ID (assignID() should
generate something unique) and **then add the subjectIndicatorRef reference
as a subject indicator of the dummy topic**.

Its that bit between the ** which I have a suspicion might be missing - I'm
not able to take a look at this till tomorrow now, but if this is a problem
and you find and make the change, I would be happy to receive it in email.

Cheers,

Kal

> (feel free to suggest alternatives, but this looks pretty scaleable and
> quite compatible with the general web-vibe)

Yes, absolutely, and workable in a peer-to-peer architecture too.

Cheers,

Kal