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

Received on Friday, 7 December 2001 17:51:37 UTC