RE: n3/n-triples syntax question

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Sandro Hawke [mailto:sandro@w3.org]
> Sent: 30 November, 2001 14:23
> To: timbl@w3.org
> Cc: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> Subject: n3/n-triples syntax question
> 
> 
> 
> I was telling Bijan that his n3 parser should output N-Triples, when
> we came across the problem that anonymous node names (_:qname) are a
> pain to generate uniquely.  When you need one (eg for a [ ]
> construct), you can't just make one ("_:g57"), because the user might
> use the same identifier ("_:g57") later in the document.
> 
> Our best solution is to say you generate illegal names ("_:57") during
> parsing, then at the end of the document, you rename those over to the
> first _:gXX that's not already taken.   Painful, but correct.
> 
> The more obvious approach of "reserving" names like _:_gXXX would
> violate the principle of N-Triples being a sub-language of n3, at
> least in spirit.   Maybe you can finesse the definition of "reserve",
> and say that such names "may conflict with names generated internally
> if you go beyond N-Triples to other n3 features."  Pretty ugly.
> 
> Better solutions?
> 
>       -- sandro
> 

Use UUIDs for node identity. This ensures (if we leave out broken
"pseudo-UUIDs" that MS products use) that all such identifiers are
globally and temporally unique, even across instances, allowing
triples to be merged freely without risk of collision.

Cheers,

Patrick