Re: Describing relative paths - but with unknown target

Hi Seth,

Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough or maybe I don't understand what you mean :)
But your example code suggests referring to an actual path (file:///C:/wherefor/whatever/) on a user's machine. Is that what you meant?

I can't do that since I don't know what that path is - only the user installing my package knows where they installed the application that my package is an extension for. I still need to refer to files that are part of that application that I don't know the installation path for - all I can say is that those files have a particular path *relative* to whatever the installation path is: I know what the relative path is - I don't know what it's relative *to* except logically as "wherever you installed application X or Y".

So my problem is: how do I describe a path relative to a base path that can be described only logically but not as a specific path?

Sorry if I misunderstood your suggestion though - I'm still new at this. If I did misunderstand could you try to explain a bit more? Thanks!

At 19:59 2003-01-18, Seth Russell wrote:
>Have you considered  using a Bnode to denote the  installation on  a person's computer ?  
>In  N3 it would look something like:
>
>[ foo:installDirectory  <file:///C:/wherefor/whatever/> ;
> foo:installedName "Seth Russell";
>..... other parameters relative to the clients installation ...]
>
>With the new RDF syntax you could use a Bnode ID to refer to it from other nodes.
>
>Seth Russell
>http://radio.weblogs.com/0113759/
>
>----- in response to ----
>Marjolein Katsma wrote:
>
>>Still working on my package descriptions (developing an RDF schema to describe software packages).
>>
>>A package consists of files; the location of these files can be described using xlink:href with a URI relative to the package itself (as distributed, as well as once installed. I think that in this scenario it is not necessary to define a base path (xml:base) since the package (distribution) itself provides the base path. (Is this correct?)
>>
>>Things become more complicated when I need to refer to required files on the user's system (not included in the package but required for its functionality). Essentially they would still be relative paths - but relative to the "installation path" of the application my package is an extension for. The actual installation path will be different for different users; still that installation path will also be the target installation path for my package, so (more or less): a path relative to the distribution == a path relative to the installed package AND a path relative to the installed package == a path relative to the user's application path.
>>I'm not sure if I would need to define a base path for required files in this case (strictly speaking they can't be relative to the distribution of my package since they're not included - but *will* be relative to the package once installed correctly).
>>
>>A related question is: is there a way to self-reference an RDF file, so that (for instance) I could use an RDF statement *within* the file to state something like: all xlink:hrefs in this file are relative to [some logical description of "application installation path"]?
>>
>>Suggestions, anyone? 
>>
>>.
>>
>> 
>

-- 
Marjolein Katsma
HomeSite Help - http://hshelp.com/
Java Woman - http://javawoman.com

Received on Sunday, 19 January 2003 07:48:36 UTC