Re: DISTINCT()

On 2012-03-14, at 13:44, Olivier Corby wrote:

> I fear that the design is becoming over complex.
> 
> We used to have two kinds of repetitions:
> 
> + *   without loop in the path (except first step of + ...)
> {n,m} with loop in the path
> 
> Now we would have three kinds of repetitions:
> 
> + *     without loop, without duplicate
> {+} {*} without loop, with duplicate 
> {n,m}   with loop with duplicate 
> 
> In addition, {} notation is (in general) used for set but {+} enables duplicates so it is misleading
> In addition {n,m} and {+} do not behave the same with loops, so it is not uniform
> 
> 
> (By the way, our experience in my team is that loops in {n,m} are not welcome because very often {1,n} is used to limit the length of paths wrt +, but unfortunately paths are then trapped into loops (use case with symmetric relation, e.g.  foaf:knows{1,5}))
> 
> 
> Concerning distinct, I am able to prototype distinct as a global operator on path expression:
> ?x distinct(path) ?y
> 
> I would support this design.

Based on absolutely no implementation experience, just gut reaction, I would prefer just the DISTINCT(path) syntax too. It's a little less like mysterious perl-style line noise.

- Steve

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