[tmql-wg] Result set requirements

[Robert Barta]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 09:29:19PM -0500, Dmitry wrote:
> > | I personally prefer explicit XQuery-like constructors.

> I just copied sample with "good formatting":
> 
> http://homepage.mac.com/dmitryv/TopicMaps/TMPath/TologBasedCostructorsSample.htm

Dmitry,

That does not look like XQuery at all :-))

   topic($JournalPaper,$NewTopic){              ## we construct new topic based on existing one and 
                                                ## $newTopic binds to it
            retract publication-date($Self,_)   ## delete some assertions from $newTopic

Cloning nodes and adding/retracting information looks very complext to
me. And, more generally, it facvours those transformations where there
is a lot of similarity between incoming and outgoing information
(read: ontology).

Not sure, whether this is good and bad.

--

I think I discussed this a while back with Lars on IRC, that

  - Once we decide to generate something fancier than lists,

  - we _HAVE TO_ commit ourselves to a notation for that.

For lists this is easy:

   return (or for the SQL fans 'select')
     # here the values go
     A, B, C, ...

For XML it probably is...XML!

   return/select
     <sometag>....</sometag>

I do not think that DOM2 constructors will make us happy ;-)

For TM it is ....hmmmm?

Of course I used AsTMa= for AsTMa? All other approaches will have to
come up with some syntax as well.

\rho