Re: Editorial: small clarification of LOAD

On Wed, 2012-08-01 at 10:47 -0400, Paul Gearon wrote:
> David,
> 
> Thank you for your comment.
> 
> David Booth wrote:
>  > In Section 3.1.4 LOAD:
>  > http://www.w3.org/2009/sparql/docs/update-1.1/Overview.xml#load
>  > where it says: "The LOAD operation reads an RDF document from a IRI and
>  > inserts its triples" and a little later where it says "the resulting
>  > triples will be inserted" I suggest s/insert/merge/ to be clear that
>  > existing triples are deleted when the new triples are LOADed.
>  >
>  > Thus those phrases would read: "The LOAD operation reads an RDF document
>  > from a IRI and merges its triples"  and "the resulting triples will be
>  > merged".
> 
> Since both "insert" and "merge" imply new data and do not suggest the
> removal of information, then am I correct to presume that when you
> said, "existing triples are deleted," that you actually intended to
> say, "existing triples are not deleted"?

Oops!  Yes, sorry for that typo.  :(

> 
> When the LOAD operation is executed, new data is added to the existing
> triples in a graph. No triples will be deleted from the destination
> graph. We believe that the word "insert" in the informal prose implies
> this. The use of the word "merge" would imply "RDF Merge". This may be
> essentially what a LOAD does, however the operation is described
> completely independently of RDF Merge. The formal definition of LOAD
> is in section 4.3.4, but to make it clearer in the prose we have added
> the following:
> 
> "If the destination graph already exists, then no data in that graph
> will be removed."

Good.  I am satisfied with this resolution.

Thanks!
David


> 
> We would be grateful if you would acknowledge that your comments have
> been answered by sending a reply to this mailing list.
> 
> Regards,
> Paul Gearon,
> on behalf of the SPARQL WG.
> 
> 

-- 
David Booth, Ph.D.
http://dbooth.org/

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Received on Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:52:33 UTC