Subject: [Ltru] Re: Matching metrics (was: Registry in record-jar format)

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 21:17:36 -0700

John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth dot com> wrote:

> I'm not clear on whether * = * should count as a match or a no-match.
> Originally I thought it should count as a match, but perhaps not.

It has to be a match.  Otherwise, additional elements don't serve the
purpose of narrowing down the scope (for either requested or tagged
content).  They just get in the way.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California
 http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 21:20:18 -0700

Randy Presuhn <randy underscore presuhn at mindspring dot com> wrote:

> Pardon the naive question:
> Couldn't we simply use Unicode character references (as needed)
> in a record-jar format?

We can, and plan to, but they'll look like  /u263A  instead of  &#x263A;
.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 00:26:36 -0400

> We can, and plan to, but they'll look like  /u263A  instead of  &#x263A;

I'm not very happy with this format, for two reasons: it's unique to
this database, and it's unterminated.  Either use Java-style UTF-16
escapes, \unnnn, or XML character references, which work at the
codepoint level.  In addition, it requires that / be escaped, which
wouldn't be necessary otherwise.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
Rather than making ill-conceived suggestions for improvement based on
uninformed guesses about established conventions in a field of study with
which familiarity is limited, it is sometimes better to stick to merely
observing the usage and listening to the explanations offered, inserting
only questions as needed to fill in gaps in understanding. --Peter Constable

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 21:42:15 -0700

> wouldn't be necessary otherwise.

We could reverse the slash to a backslash, Java-style.  That way we
would only need to escape the backslash (which we do anyway, if we use
it for continuation) and not the forward slash (though at present there
are no forward slashes to be escaped).

Using XML references would require the ampersand to be escaped (there
aren't any of those in the registry either), and poses an interesting
problem with the semicolon, which is already escaped because of its role
in separating lists (e.g. of recommended prefixes).  The registry has
several descriptions of the form "Occitan (post 1500); Provencal" where
the semicolon, inherited from the ISO 639 description, needs to be
escaped.  If the 'c' in "Provencal" were a c-with-cedilla (ç), which I
think it's supposed to be anyway, then that would translated to the XML
reference &#x00E7; and I think you'd have to re-escape the trailing
semicolon.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 00:54:58 -0400

> are no forward slashes to be escaped).

The annoyance is then that you need to use two of them to represent a
non-BMP character, which artificially imports UTF-16 rules into the
stream of characters.

> reference &#x00E7; and I think you'd have to re-escape the trailing

I don't understand any of this.  Why does the existing format escape
semicolons?  They aren't used as record-jar delimiters.  Furthermore,
XML character references don't require escaped semicolons, because
they are magic only inside a character (or entity) reference.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths
led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen.  I am the clue-finder,
the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number.  --Bilbo