[Activerdf] RDF Container processing

[Benno Blumenthal]

One last thought and I will be quiet.

I have been thinking about this (too much, perhaps). Right now the 
results of a query are either an RDFS:Resource or an array of such. We 
could change this so that the results of a query are either an 
RDFS:Resource or a new class RDFS:Resources, which has an each operator 
so that we can go through the list of results. Furthermore, we could 
change the query object behavior to handle an unknown method by adding 
it to the query. Thus we could handle a blank node simply by returning 
the query -- using a method on the query simply extends the query, 
exactly the behavior we need for blank nodes. There would be a bit of a 
fine dance in the each interating over multiple returns vs each 
iterating over an rdf Collection or Bag. But each would know how many 
returns it got, so it could make the decision. Still, might be nice to 
be able to force the returning of rdfs:Resources even with one return so 
that one could be sure what each was going to do. Though anyone who 
would have a single property that points to several lists is cruel, anyway.

Benno

-- 
Dr. M. Benno Blumenthal          benno at iri.columbia.edu
International Research Institute for climate and society
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Lamont Campus, Palisades NY 10964-8000   (845) 680-4450