[Myexperiment-discuss] myExperiment RDF API and ID numbers

[David R Newman]

Hi All,

Egon and I have been having a discussion of certain aspects of the RDF
API after he made the following request:

"If I look up the RDF for a workflow (e.g.
http://rdf.myexperiment.org/Workflow/889), I do not have access to the
Workflow number as an integer field... while I can extract this from the
above URI, I'd very much prefer an explicit field listing the number..."

This raised a few interesting question.  First the recognition of the
emergent behaviour for users to refer to workflows by the ID number
allocated to a workflow, ultimately through MySQL's auto increment ID
field.  Egon cites Duncan's twitter post about car number plates:

"RV07NZT is in many contexts a much better id for my car than
http://x.y.z/reg/uk/RV07NZT";

Clearly when you are in the context of talking about myExperiment
workflows, often all people need to know to understand which one you are
refering to is the the ID number:

"889, that's the Bioeclipse script that use DBPedia RDF data isn't it?"

Also the REST API uses ID as an explicit parameter:

http://www.myexperiment.org/workflow.xml?id=889

Therefore if you want to recover data using the SPARQL endpoint and then
perform operations on it using the REST API having the ID a separate
field would save any data munging.  However the REST API also allow you
to recover any resource explicitly:










-----Original Message-----
From: Egon Willighagen <address@hidden>
Reply-To: Egon Willighagen <address@hidden>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:12:31 +0200
To: myExperiment <address@hidden>
Cc: address@hidden, Duncan Hull
<address@hidden>
Subject: Re: (Case 1106) myExperiment feedback from Egon Willighagen
(address@hidden)

>On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 6:01 PM, myExperiment <address@hidden>
wrote:
>> The following query will return to columns, the workflow URI and the
URL for downloading the workflow.  From what you are doing I assume you
are using the REST API to request the download of a workflow.  Using the
"content-url" value returned by this query will save you having to go
via the REST API.
>
>Yes, I know. But I still need to get the numbers. As I do not want to
>download the workflows directly...
>
>> I can see how in general if you want to go an use the REST API it is
useful to have the ID value to throw at it.  However, if this solves
your problem in the meantime I will probably take some time to think how
the REST and RDF APIs should best interact.
>
>An alternative solution for me would be to return the full workflow
>URI... it's like that RT from Duncan Hull (cc-ed) today:
>
>"rt @michaelhkay  "RV07NZT is in many contexts a much better id for
>my car than http://x.y.z/reg/uk/RV07NZT"; #linkeddata
>http://bit.ly/JSJKR";
>
>I talk about workflow "889", and not workflow
>"http://rdf.myexperiment.org/Workflow/889"; ...
>
>The MyExperiment website indeed does not seem to use it as such,
>though the URLs of the www frontend tend to encourage it a bit, with
>the REST like structure...
>
>I am patient... it's just a feature request :)
>
>BTW, while at it... what about a triple
>
>http://rdf.myexperiment.org/Workflow/889 foaf:homepage
>http://www.myexperiment.org/workflows/889
>
>(as another thought) ?
>
>Oh, another thingy... are there plans to use the ontologies for
>embedding the RDF as RDFa in the HTML directly? Just wondering... :)
>
>Egon
>
>-- 
>Post-doc @ Uppsala University
>Homepage: http://egonw.github.com/
>Blog: http://chem-bla-ics.blogspot.com/
>PubList: http://www.citeulike.org/user/egonw/tag/papers
>