Re: Attribute Architecture proposal

On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 11:46:00AM +0100, Robert Sanderson wrote:
> In CQL, multiple anchoring tags are possible, so my preference would be to
> leave in leftanchored.  Also one might get a query:
> 
>   title all words leftAnchored "cat"
> 
> Which isn't impossible to perform as a search.  Secondly there might be 
> multiple fields (see also the date range problem and why > AND < doesn't 
> work)
> 
>   subject all words leftAnchored "computer technology"
> 
> Find me records that have both computer and technology at the beginning of 
> a subject.

I put some text up as I mentioned on the list for a definition of
LeftAnchored. However, thinking more, does left anchored mean first
word in field, or first word in paragraph, or first word in sentence,
etc? Should the name at least be more descriptive to say what the
'start' is that we are anchoring to? Eg: using the proximity units for
PROX that relate to a concept of text would mean that all of the
following were possibilities (even if not all supported immediately).

    Anchored at Start of Sentence
    Anchored at Start of Paragraph
    Anchored at Start of Chapter
    Anchored at Start of Document
    Anchored at Start of Element
    Anchored at Start of SubElement

I think these are better than

    Left Anchored

'left' feels more like a pattern match operator than a word based
operator relating to positional information.

I guess Element would be what I meant by 'field'. I notice that the
word 'field' has been used a number of times in the utility set. Is
'field' an official Z39.50 concept? Should it be saying 'element'
everywhere instead? Or is a Z39.50 element different to what is meant
by 'field'? It might be defined somewhere that I missed.

Oh, just checked the CQL page and it has only listed sentence, paragraph,
and element from the above. So maybe only put those ones in? Thinking
further, ^ has only one meaning of anchoring (but the CQL page does not 
really say what its anchored to the start of - Rob, I see what you mean
now about adding something to section 12 of the CQL page).

So I have proposed to rename 'LeftAnchored' to 'Anchored at Start of Element'
in my page, leaving scope for future additions if appropriate.
But I can understand reluctance to open the flood gate of such
changes.

Alan

Received on Thursday, 10 July 2003 00:52:16 UTC