Re: [topicmaps-comment] mapping topic maps on a relation database

[Murray Altheim <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>]

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | The question is also: how are you going to do the processing from
> | XTM to XTM'? It seems pretty tricky to me, unless you use a OO API
> | to represent your topic map, and if you do you might as well hide
> | all that ugly XML stuff behind it. At that point XTM' becomes just
> | another storage mechanism, and definitely not the easiest to query.
> 
> * Murray Altheim
> | 
> | I've currently got LTM, XTM and several other syntaxes parsing into
> | a set of Java objects, so yes I guess I have an OO API in effect.
> | I'm hiding the uglies as much as possible.
> 
> That's the approach I was thinking of, and I do think it's the one
> that makes the most sense.


I honestly couldn't think of any other way, except now perhaps I might
have tried to objectify a more generic model (such as from GXL), noting
that that's essentially what Steve and Michel did with their graph DTD.
I have some "improvements" in that design...


> | [merging] 
> | 
> | Sorry for the handwaving answer, but all of this I suppose will come
> | in good time. My engine right now does certain parts of the merging
> | process correctly, certain parts not correctly, certain not at all.
> | There's work to be done...
> 
> Well, I think it makes sense to get the basic scaffolding right first
> and do the merging later. The merging is going to build on that
> anyway, so...


Yes, and while some were criticised for putting Appendix F into the
XTM 1.0 spec, I've found it pretty helpful in stepping through it
in developing the various merges.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                         <mailto:m.altheim @ open.ac.uk>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu