[sc34wg3] CTM: Mergemap directive and semicolons

[Jaeho Lee]

Hello again,
Technically speaking, I don't think the "unofficial" Leipzig meeting can
"decide" on issues.
As a host of the "official" Jeju meeting, this reminds me of the bitterness
I had in Jeju :)

Anyway, I would like to repeat my opinion.
I think ugliness is subjective issue and I support the consistent use of the
semicolon at the end of every statement, or construct, including directives.


---
 Jaeho Lee
 Convener, JTC1/SC34/WG5
 Email:     jaeho at uos.ac.kr
 Phone:     +82-2-2210-2629
 Fax:        +82-2-2249-6802
 Cellular: +82-11-9010-2629
 Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering,  The University of Seoul
 Silipdae-gil 13, Dongdaemun-gu,  Seoul 130-743, Korea


> -----Original Message-----
> From: sc34wg3-bounces at isotopicmaps.org [mailto:sc34wg3-
> bounces at isotopicmaps.org] On Behalf Of Lars Heuer
> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 11:13 PM
> To: Discussion of ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps
> Subject: [sc34wg3] CTM: Mergemap directive and semicolons
>
> Hi all,
>
> The mergemap directive [1] provides an optional "notation" identifier.
> If the notation is *not* specified the CTM parser must assume that
> referenced file uses CTM syntax.
>
> At the meeting in Leipzig we decided that the "notation" should be an
> IRI (PSI) and not a string. This decision solves the problem that a
> string is a very weak identifier and that the working group can use a
> namespace where it can host "official" notations (aside from
> 'unofficial' notations like AsTMa= and LTM).
>
> So far so good, but this IRI introduces the problem that we cannot
> decide if the IRI is meant as notation or as subject identifier (since
> the notation is optional). In Leipzig we decided that we introduce
> semicolons for all directives to solve the problem.
>
> Maybe an example helps to understand the problem:
>
>  %mergemap http://www.example.org/map.ctm
> http://www.topicmaps.org/syntax/ctm
>
> A parser cannot decide if <http://www.topicmaps.org/syntax/ctm> is
> meant as subject identifier or as notation. (It can decide it if it
> sees a "." (topic block delimiter) somewhere but that could be too
> late).
>
> Current solution:
>   a) %mergemap <http://www.example.org/map.ctm>;
>   b) %mergemap <http://example.org/map.xtm> <http://topicmaps.org/xtm>;
>
> a) The parser merges the specified map and assumes that it uses CTM
>    syntax, otherwise an error is issued
> b) The parser merges the specified map using the syntax specified by
>    the PSI <http://topicmaps.org/xtm>
>
> Using semicolons after each directive solves the problem but it looks
> ugly (version directive: %version 1.0; ).
>
> After taking a shower and thinking about it a bit I wondered if it
> wouldn't be better to make the "notation" mandatory for the mergemap
> directive: If the directive is changed from
>
>     mergemap ::= '%mergemap' IRI IRI? ';'
>
> to
>     mergemap ::= '%mergemap' IRI IRI
>
> the parser can always decide when the directive was parsed completely
> and we wouldn't bother the users to add semicolons everywhere.
>
> What do you think?
>
> [1] <http://www.isotopicmaps.org/ctm/ctm.html#dir-mergemap>
>
> Best regards,
> Lars
> --
> Semagia
> <http://www.semagia.com>
>
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