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Knowledge that shall be imported into WissDB as well as knowledge that is to be exported (as a search result) is exchanged between user and system in form of knowledge packages:
A Knowledge Package is a zipped tree of files representing
– process structure,
– knowledge items,
– attributes of knowledge items,
– and also correlation structure.
A knowledge package is said to be well formed if:
– For each file in the package the path starting with the package root and ending with the name of the file is a D_Locator.
– Directly under the root of the package there is a file named Structure.
– Directly under each subtree root named Result/ there is also Structure file.
– All paths starting under the root of the package start with a Schema Locator.
– Each Structure file is ASCII text in Knowledge Structure Format describing all nodes found in the tree that is rooted in the node of which this file is a son (structure files ignored).
A file containing ASCII text is said to be in Knowledge Structure Format if:
– The first column of each line is ASCII character 32 or 45 (a space or a minus sign).
– The second column of each line is ASCII character 32 (a space)
– If the first column contains a minus sign, the string starting in column 3 is a D_Locator (relative to the node under which the structure file is found).
– Directly following such a line may be lines starting with ASCII characters 32, 32, 46, 32, 32 followed by a string X: Z so that X is denoting an attribute and Z a value for this attribute. (ASCII character 46 is the dot).
– Please note that an attribute X in this sense can also be a correlation type (or the name of the relation Is_keyword_for).
– If the value Z is a D_Locator not starting with a number, it must be given relative to the node under which the structure file is found. It must have this form if X is a value of D_CorrelationType. This is to ensure that knowledge packages and items therein that are results – or even practice instances – will always be self contained.
Rationale for the Knowledge Structure Format:
The reader may wonder why we do not require structure files to be in XML format. The reason for this decision is that knowledge administrators – and especially people submitting results to be included into the knowledge database – shall be able to read and edit structure files in a painless way.
Note also that structure files may contain comment (comment are all text sections not starting with a line containing a minus sign in their first column). Comment sections should always follow an empty line.
Rationale for the Format of Knowledge Packages:
As long as a knowledge package is not zipped, it is simply a tree of files (i.e. a data structure the user and knowledge administrator is used to work with). This will also minimize the need for creating values of type D_Locator explicitly.
Dialogs to be supported by WissDB can be quite simple, and structure files can be generated to a very large degree by a suitable utility that is capable of being envoked via e.g. ANT, make, or nmake.