Re: idempotency of triple stores

On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 06:50:53PM +0200, Martin Hepp (DERI extern) wrote:
> 
> Hi Mark,
> in my humble opinion, writing the same triple multiple times does not change
> the state of the triple store. In other words, duplicate triples should not
> be stored multiple times (there might be implementations that are flawed in
> this sense). Unless it is encapsulated as a reified statement, a triple does
> not have an identity of its own.
> 
> So if one writes the same triple twice and deletes it once afterwards, the
> triple should no longer exist (*).
> 
> 
> Martin 
> 
> (*) Unless it can also be deduced, e.g. based on an rdfs:subClassOf
> relationship. Quite naturally, if you delete an explicit triple, but it is
> still stored implicitly, it is still there - but that seems obvious to me.

That would depend on whether it appeared in multiple docuements. If I
assert document A that includes triple T and docuement B that also includes
it, then retract document A I wouldn't neccesarily expect T to disappear.
Depending on how the store handles data management.

- Steve