[sc34wg3] CTM templates - A proposal

[Murray Altheim]

Quoting Lars Heuer <heuer at semagia.com>:

> Hi all,
>
> Steve Pepper has suggested that I should send my CTM template proposal
> to this list.
> The following proposal was derived from an e-mail to the other CTM
> editors, but I tried to make it readable for 3rd parties. :) Feel free
> to ask questions / comments etc.

Lars,

Not sure if this is of any help, but for the past three years I've been
using a very simple templating approach that has worked without any
problems. Since I author most of my Topic Maps in LTM*, I created a PSI
for "Template" and simply scope any template associations with that
PSI. When an association is parsed and found to be within the Template
scope, it is cached as a template and not sent on to be processed as a
normal association (visualized, sent to the inference engine, etc.).
This has the advantage of using the same syntax as any LTM association,
not requiring any modifications to the parser/processor, and handling
the template processing at a higher level than syntax.

As I mentioned, this has worked just fine for the past three years or
so. I've not yet found any need for anything more complicated.

Murray

*  actually a slightly modified LTM that permits superclass-subclass
    associations to be expressed using a ';' rather than the ':' for
    class-instance.
...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray06 at altheim.com>                              ===  = =
http://www.altheim.com/murray/                                     = =  ===
SGML Grease Monkey, Banjo Player, Wantanabe Zen Monk               = =  = =

        In the evening
        The rice leaves in the garden
        Rustle in the autumn wind
        That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu