[topicmapmail] TMDM serialization

[Borislav Iordanov]

Hi,

I have a couple of question regarding XML serialization of topics maps
represented in TMDM 2.0. I'm working on a topic maps implementation and I'd
like the implementation to be able to read an XMT 2.0 file, store it and
then export the exact same file. Two questions came while I was writing the
export part:

1) The id attribute of the topic tag found in the original file gets bundled
into an item identifier in the TMDM. Given that a topic may have multiple
item identifiers, how to recover the original id during export?

2) Similarly, when I have to include an href attribute in, say, a topicRef
tag during export, which of the possible subject identifiers or item
identifiers to output? I guess that any one of them would be valid, but is
there a preference (e.g. for an item identifier whose IRI has the topic
map's base IRI as a prefix)?

I guess XML serialization is considered implementation dependent so I'm free
to do whatever seems best, right?

The only thing that bugs me a little bit is the fact the topic id attribute
is mandatory in XMT 2.0, but then it's not even part of the data model!

Thanks
Boris