RE: data smushing

[Bill dehOra <BdehOra@interx.com>]

> > My #2 was detecting statements that use different 
> identifiers for the
> > same entity; there is no reliable way to know whether
> > 
> >   <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://foo.com/xxx">
> >    <dc:title>Joe Smith</dc:title>
> >   </rdf:Description>
> > 
> > and
> > 
> >   <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://bar.com/yyy">
> >    <dc:title>Joe Smith</dc:title>
> >   </rdf:Description>
> >    
> > represent the same entity or not.  

They're isn't a way, they're Literals. 


> >   <foo:Collection rdf:about="http://foo.com/davidscollection">
> >    <foo:item>wooden soprano recorder</foo:item>
> >   </foo:Collection>
> > 
> > and foobar.com contains
> > 
> >   <foo:Collection rdf:about="http://foo.com/davidscollection">
> >    <foo:item>wooden soprano recorder</foo:item>
> >   </foo:Collection>
> > 
> > Does the collection have one or two wooden soprano 
> recorders?  How can you be sure?

You can't, they're Literals. But if identifying a thing is particularly
important, shouldn't it have its own resource/URI to stand for it? You don't
even need RDF for this (Sorry Dan :), you just need processors that will
unify terms that have the same URI. So <item> (or whatever) has a 'ruid' (or
whatever) attribute that a processor can string match for identity. 

<foo:Collection rdf:about="http://foo.com/davidscollection">
<foo:item ruid="urn:thing">wooden soprano recorder</foo:item>
</foo:Collection>
 
and foobar.com contains:

<foo:Collection rdf:about="http://foo.com/davidscollection">
<foo:item ruid="urn:thing">soprano recorder</foo:item>
</foo:Collection>

then there's only one thing being talked about here. You don't need the same
elements or the same element content, for matching purposes they're largely
irrelevant. What you do need is a processor to know that certain attributes
can be used for this purpose. Am I missing something, is this too
simplistic?

-Bill

-----
Bill de hÓra  :  InterX  :  bdehora@interx.com