NAME

       TM::Serializable::LTM - Topic Maps, trait for parsing of LTM instances.

SYNOPSIS

         # this is not an end-user package
         # see the source of TM::Materialized::LTM

DESCRIPTION

       This package provides parsing functionality for LTM 1.3 instances with the exceptions listed below. LTM
       1.3 is backwards compatible with version 1.2.  As LTM 1.3 is not yet public, please contact the author
       (Lars M. Garshol) for a copy.
          http://www.ontopia.net/download/ltm.html

   Deviations from the LTM Specification
       comments:
           The  parser  does  NOT  recognizes  nested  comments.  Any closest following */ sequence terminates a
           comment. The parser does also not distinguish between comments within or outside strings.

           Justification: Speed of parsing and complexity of the parser.

       scope:
           Only exactly ONE topic can be specified for a scope.

           Justification: Multiple topics per scope are allowed by the standard,  but  are  undefined  in  their
           semantics. The underlying TM representation does NOT allow for multiple topics per scope.

       variants
           Variants are currently not supported. This also includes sort names and display names.

           Justification: Will be added later.

       syntax
           Any number of statements are allowed in LTM files (also 0).

           Justification: There is no reason to do otherwise.

       TOPICMAP directive
           This is currently not implemented.

           Justification: There are better ways to do that.

       MERGEMAP directive
           The HyTime, ISO13250 format is not implemented as there is currently no driver in the TM suite.

           Justification: As long as there is no interest (read: bribe money), it never will.

       BASEURI directive
           BASEURI is currently not honored for all local URIs.

           Justification: I do not understand its purpose.

       encoding
           This is currently ignored.

           Justification: Will be added later.

       Subject Locators
           It is a violation to use more than one subject locator per topic.

           Justification: This is enforced by the underlying model.

       Source Locators
           No source locators are created.

           Justification: There is no such concept (thankfully) in the TM suite.

       role type:
           If a role is not specified, it will remain default to "thing" and not - as the specification mandates
           - will be substituted by the topic type.

           Justification:  First,  a topic might have several types (which one to use?), secondly there might be
           several topics in a member and thirdly, a role should generally NOT be the type of a member.

   Notes
       Merging
           The parser (like any other in the TM suite) does NOT perform  merging  automatically.   You  have  to
           trigger that explicitely with the method "consolidate".

       MERGEMAP directive
           The  strings  determining  the  format  are  checked case-insensitive, so ASTMA and AsTMa are treated
           equally.

           The location of the map can be defined via any URI handled by LWP::Simple.  If no scheme is  provided
           file: will be assumed.

INTERFACE

   Methods
       deserialize
           This  method  tries to parse the passed in text stream as LTM instance. It will raise an exception on
           the first parse error.

       serialize
           This is not implemented.

SEE ALSO

       TM

AUTHOR INFORMATION

       Copyright 200[1-6], Robert Barta <drrho@cpan.org>, All rights reserved.

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under  the  same  terms  as  Perl
       itself.  http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

perl v5.18.1                                       2008-06-12                         TM::Serializable::LTM(3pm)