Ctm 1.0 Tutorial

CTM 1.0Compact Topic Maps Syntax

Tutorial

Lars Heuer <[email protected]>

TMRA 2008, Leipzig · 15.10.2008

© 2008 Lars Heuer · http://www.semagia.com TMRA 2008, Leipzig · 15.10.2008 2

Table of Contents

IntroductionOverviewDetailsCreate your own topic mapQuestions / Answers


Introduction

CTM is a textual Topic Maps syntax (like LTM and AsTMa=)Is meant to be human-friendlySupports TMDMStandard format (ISO 13250-6) unlike LTM and AsTMa=Human-readable, usable for examples, papers


Introduction

CTM is utilised by TMCL to define constraintsCTM will be used by TMQL for

INSERT operationsUPDATE operationsDELETE operations

Shares some similarities with TMQL (syntaxwise)Current draft (slightly outdated)http://www.isotopicmaps.org/ctm/


Introduction

CTM is nearly finished (feature-wise, syntax-wise)Next draft will appear within the next twomonthsCurrently no stable, upto-date CTM parser isavailable (should change soon)


Overview – ToC

TopcisNamesOccurrencesLiteralsAssociationsCommentsSummary


Overview – Topics Topics are introduced with an identity and end with a dot (".") (often labeled as "topicblock")Typically topics start with a simple identifier, a subject identifier, or subject locator.

john-lennon . # Topic with an item identifier

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon . # subj. ident.

= http://www.google.com/ . # subject locator


Overview – Topics

An IRI is interpreted as subject identifierunless it is prefixed by an equal sign(or it is used as occurrence / variant value)Rootless IRIs (IRIs without "://") are notdetected, they have to be embedded into "<" ">":Topic with a subject identifier:

<mailto:[email protected]> .


Overview – Topics

Topic statements like names and occurrences are delimited by a semicolon(";")The semicolon is optional iff it is the last statement (if the next character is the dot which marks the end of the topic)


Overview – Names

Names are introduced by a hyphen, followedby an optional name type and the valueExample:john-lennon- "John Lennon";- surname: "Lennon".


Overview – Names

Names are introduced by a hyphen, followedby an optional name type and the valueExample:john-lennon- "John Lennon";- surname: "Lennon".

Name type

Name value


Overview – Names

If the name type is not specified, the nameuses automatically the default topic nametypeThe name scope is introduced by an @ signfollowed by comma delimited themesExample:The-Beatles - "The Beatles";- "Fab Four" @nickname;- "Pilzköpfe" @nickname, de .


Overview – Occurrences

Occurrences start with the type, a colonfollowed by the valueExample:The-Beatleswebsite: http://www.beatles.com.uk.


Overview – Occurrence Scope

The scope is introduced by an @ sign followedby the themesExample:The-Beatleswebsite: http://www.beatles.com.uk ;website: http://beatles.de/ @de .


Overview – Literals

CTM provides some built-in datatypes:StringDateDateTimeIntegerDecimalIRI

These datatypes can be used as occurrenceand variant value


Overview – Literals – String

Example:TopicMaps- "Topic Maps";description: "A technology …".

The datatype of the occurrence "description" isset to xsd:string


Overview – Literals – Dates

Examples:McCartneybirthday: 1942-02-18.

Blog-Entrycreated: 2008-10-12T17:30:22 .

Datatype of "birthday" is set to xsd:date, dataype of "created" is xsd:dateTime


Overview – Literals – Numbers

Examples:McCartneyage: 66 .

CTMversion: 1.0 .

Datatype of "age" is set to xsd:integer, dataypeof "version" is xsd:decimal


Overview – Literals

Non-built-in datatypes can be expressed usingthe string value with an explicit datatype:"value"^^datatypeThe "datatype" is specified by an IRI or a QNameExamples:"09-19"^^xsd:gMonthDay"true"^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema# boolean


Overview – Associations

member-of(group: TheBeatles,

member: john-lennon)





Association type

Role types





Association type

Role types

Role players



The (optional) scope is added to an association by the @ sign followed by thethemesExample:member-of(group: blind-faith,

member: eric) @year-1969


Overview – Comments

Single line comments start with a hash ("#") and reach until the end of a lineMultiline comments start with #( and end with)#Examples:# I am a single line comment

#( line 1line 2 )#


Overview – Summary

Topics are introduced by an identity and end with a dot ("."). The "topic block"Topic statements must be delimited by a semicolon (";") unless it is the last statementNames are introduced with a hyphen ("-"), theyhave an optional explicit type and a value(string)Occurrences are introduced by the typefollowed by a literal


Overview – Summary

CTM has built-in literals but the user canspecify any datatype using the"value"^^datatype notationNotation for associations:

assoc-type(role-type1: role-player1,role-type2: role-player2, …)

The scope of a statement is introduced by the@ sign followed by comma-delimited themes


Details – ToC

Assigning additional identities to topicsCreating type-instance / supertype-subtyperelationshipsReificationEmbedded TopicsDirectivesTemplates


Details - Topics

Topics are not limited to one identity, anynumber of identities can be specifiedExample:

McCartneyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/Paul_McCartney ; http://de.wikipedia.org/Paul_McCartney .

Topic with the item identifier "McCartney" and two subject identifiers


Details - Topics

Example:

GoogleWebsite= http://www.google.com/ .

Topic with the item identifier"GoogleWebsite" and a subject locator


Details – Type-Instance

CTM provides the keyword "isa" to establishtype-instance relationships between topicsExample:john isa person .

Creates a type-instance associationbetween "john" and "person" where "john" plays the "instance" role and "person" playsthe "type" role


Details – Supertype-Subtype

The keyword "ako" creates a supertype-subtype association between topicsExample:album ako work .

Creates a supertype-subtype associationbetween "album" and "work" where "album" plays the "subtype" role and "work" plays the"supertype" role


Details – Reification

To reify a statment, use a tilde ("~") followedby a topic referenceExample:works-for(company: BigCo,

employee: Barney) ~ barneys-employment

barneys-employmentdescr: "Barneys employment during 1980".


Details – Embedded Topics

Everywhere where a topic reference isexcpected (i.e. as type) an embedded topiccan be usedEmbedded topics get an automaticallygenerated item identifierIt's possible to define additional (stableidentities)Handy for reification or where an explicitreference to a topic is not needed


Details – Embedded Topics

Example:

works-for(company: BigCo, employee: Barney) ~ [descr: "Barneys…"]


Details – Directives – Prefix

The "%prefix" directive can be used to assignan IRI to an identifierThe identifier can be is used as prefix within a QNameExample:

%prefix wp http://en.wikipedia.org/ ;wp:John_Lennon – "John Lennon".



QNames can also be used for subject locators:

%prefix wp http://en.wikipedia.org/ ;

= wp:John_Lennondecription: "Wikipedia page aboutJohn Lennon".



QNames can be used everywhere where a reference to a topic should be made (i.e. as association type, occurrence type, name typeetc.)


Details – Directives –Mergemap

The %mergemap directive has the samesemantics as the mergemap element in XTM 2.0 (merge the current topic map with thereferenced one).In CTM it will be possible to specify the syntaxof the referenced file. I.e. it will be possible to merge-in a topic map which is encoded in XTM 2.0, or in LTM etc.This directive will change, current spec isoutdated


Details – Directives – Include

%include:The include directive imports the referencedCTM file into the current one. Including a filemakes the templates of the other file availablein the current one and topics with an equallocal identifier (like "john") are merged (thiswould not be the case if the %mergemapdirective is used)Prefixes are not imported!


Details – Directives – Include

Example:File A:john – "John Lennon".

File B: john – surname: "Lennon".If file A includes file B the result would be:john – "John Lennon"; - surname: "Lennon".


Details – Templates

Templates are used to shorten the CTM codeEspecially useful for facts which occur often in a specific domainExample:def plays-for($player, $group, $instrument)

plays(player: $player, group: $group,instrument: $instrument)

endMcCartney plays-for(The-Beatles, piano).



If templates are invoked within a topic block, the first argument of the template is the topic!Again:

McCartney plays-for(The-Beatles, piano).is translated to:

plays-for(McCartney, The-Beatles, piano)If a templates are invoked outside a topic block, all parameters have to be specified:

plays-for(McCartney, The-Beatles, piano)



Since the topic is always used as firstargument, it is not possible to invoke a template with no arguments within a topicblockWithin a template literals and topic references canbe replaced with variables



def born($person, $date, $place) $person isa person; birthday: $date . born-in(person : $person, birthplace : $place).

end

mccartney born(1942-06-12, Liverpool).



Result:

mccartney isa person; birthday: 1942-06-12 .

born-in(person: mccartney, birthplace: Liverpool)


Details – TemplatesDon't try to reify something within a template unlessthe reifier is variable otherwise the CTM processorreports violations of Topic Maps constraintsExample (don't do that):def works-for($person, $company)

works-for(company: $company,person: $person) ~ employment

end

Everytime the "works-for" template is invoked, theprocessor tries to reify the newly created associationwhich leads to an error because a topic can reify onlyone statement



This works:def works-for($person, $company, $reifier)

works-for(company: $company,person: $person) ~ $reifier

end


Details – Templatesdef is-beatle($beatle) # "Decorates 'is-member-of'

is-member-of($beatle, The-Beatles) end def is-member-of($member, $group)

member-of(member: $member, group: $group) end is-member-of(sting, The-Police)is-beatle(john)


Details – Wildcards

?foo creates an automatically generated itemidentifier. Everytime the parser sees ?fooagain, the same topic will be reused? creates a topic with an automaticallygenerated item identifier, it is not possible to create a reference to the topic (c.f embeddedtopics)


Details – WildcardsWildcards in templates create a new itemidentifier for every invokation

def tpl()?foo – "Foo".assoc(role-type: ?foo)

endtpl();tpl(); # two topics created from ?foo


Create your own topic mapThink of a music collection, where each album is specified by a PSI which starts with "http://psi.example.org/album/" (i.e. http://psi.example.org/album/WhiteAlbum )Create at least two album topics incl. a name and an occurrence(i.e. a description)Both albums are instances of http://psi.music.com/album"Create a "created" association between a musician or group and the first album (the musician plays the "creator" role, the album the"work" role)Create a template "created-by" for the "created" associationThe second album should use the "created-by" template to establish an association between the album and the musicianUse QNames where reasonable


Possible solution%prefix album http://psi.example.org/album/ ;

album:WhiteAlbum – "White Album";descr: "The White Album was one of the last album releases of The Beatles".

The-Beatles – "The Beatles".

created(creator: The-Beatles, work: album:WhiteAlbum)


Possible solutiondef created-by($work, $creator)

created(creator: $creator,work: $work)

end

album:SgtPepper – "Sgt. Pepper";created-by(The-Beatles);descr: "One of the first concept albums".


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