PROV-ISSUE-584 (merging): The nonstandard/procedurally defined 'merging' operation on terms [prov-dm-constraints]

PROV-ISSUE-584 (merging):  The nonstandard/procedurally defined 'merging' operation on terms [prov-dm-constraints]

http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/584

Raised by: James Cheney
On product: prov-dm-constraints

A sub-issue of ISSUE-576.

>From Antoine Zimmermann's email:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-prov-comments/2012Oct/0004.html


Section 2.4:

"""
Merging

Merging is an operation that takes two terms and compares them to see if they are equal, or can be made equal by substituting an existential variable with another term.
"""

Normally, merging is an operation that takes two terms and produce a single term. I do not understand what this definition has to do with "merging". After, it is said:

"""
Merging two terms t,t' results in either substitution S such that S(t) = S(t'), or failure indicating that there is no substitution that can be applied to both t and t' to make them equal.
"""

Now, merging results in a substitution. Again, it is at odd with standard definitions of "merging".

...

Section 5.1

Merging is defined in a strange way, with a procedure, which makes it difficult to grasp what notion it is supposed to convey.

Received on Thursday, 25 October 2012 16:24:27 UTC