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Re: [ddlm-group] Objectives of CIF2 syntax discussion. .. .. .. .... .

Dear Herbert,

On Thursday, January 20, 2011 7:54 PM, you wrote:

>   You seem to have agreed to everything except calling the necessary
>addition tag a tag_style.  You want to call it a virtual_dictionary_id.

Almost.  I think the needed attribute is already among David's proposed expanded set:

"The tag, the dictionary in which it appears, the version of this dictionary, the DDL in which the dictionary is written [...], a flag to indicate whether the dataname is deprecated (needed for writing files) and a pointer to where the named dictionary can be found."

Note the separation of "the dictionary in which it appears" from "a pointer to where the named dictionary can be found".  The former might receive the name "_alias.dictionary_code", and the latter the name "_alias.dictionary_uri"; _alias.dictionary_code (or whatever name is chosen for this attribute) serves.

>If the others agree with you on that naming change, I can live with that.
>That leaves the only point of disagreement your idea of overloading that
>concept onto the dictionary_uri. I object to that as being pointlessly
>confusing, but if a majority prefers to overload a virtual_dictionary_id
>which is simply a text string onto the URI type, I'll accept that.

David's separation of dictionary identifier from dictionary locator already addresses this problem.  I took that to be intentional on his part.  This moots my proposed redefinition of dictionary_uri, therefore I withdraw that proposal, including those parts related to other attributes.  I plan to bring an alternative soon, based on David's suggestion.

>  I need
>the functionality.  It everybody else want to call the relevant tag by
>some other name, I can cope, but I really want a recorded vote on this.
>I am hoping a majority will prefer clarity.

And which option would provide that?  At this point, I think neither.  There needs to be a definition to go with the name before we can judge either whether the concept is appropriate for the DDL or whether the name is appropriate for the concept.  The new proposal I intend to bring will include these for the attributes it adds or modifies.  If you want a tag_style attribute in addition to the attributes you, David, and I all seem to agree on, then I urge you to prepare proposed definition text so that everyone understands what they are voting on.  Such a proposal probably would not conflict with my forthcoming one, though I expect that I would consider it functionally redundant.


Regards,

John

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