-----Original Message----- From: Nick Burch [mailto:nick.bu...@alfresco.com] Sent: Freitag, 4. Mai 2012 23:34 To: dev@tika.apache.org Subject: RE: [metadata] Input on reorganization of Metadata interfaces
On Fri, 4 May 2012, Joerg Ehrlich wrote: >>>> The keys will always link to properties of other namespace interfaces like: >>>> String Title = DublinCore.Title.getName(); String Author = >>>> DublinCore.Creator.getName(); >> >>> Won't that break existing parsers and consumers though? As Title will >>> suddenly change from being "title" to "dc:title", won't it? >> >> If they are not using the Tika constants themselves but their values >> instead, then yes. > >That'll break things like Alfresco then. (We do the mapping from Tika metadata >to Alfresco metadata on the strings, rather than by Metadata constants, so >it's more flexible and easier for users to extend). I suspect >Alfresco isn't >the only consumer of Tika's metadata that does the same thing. Anything that >uses tika-cli will likewise be string based, not Metadata Constant based > >> Thinking about it, I am actually not sure whether we really need to >> have the prefixes in the names anymore if the new keys are properties >> instead of strings. Then we could implement other means to identify >> the namespace for a property, by storing it in the property for >> example :) > >I think the current ones that have a prefix are easier and cleaner to >understand than the un-prefixed ones. If we're going to be basing the keys >explicitly on a standard, I think we ought to make that explicit wherever we >>can, including in the key names. It will be a faff for people to change over, >and for us to handle in the mean time, but I think if we're going to be making >a change of this scale we should take the chance to do it all properly I am not sure whether it is the proper way to put prefixes into the strings. As you said above the clients depend on those strings and it is actually not a good thing to depend on namespace prefixes instead of the actual namespaces, because prefixes are just variables everyone can choose as one likes. The only reason I did not touch the prefix concept was that I just didn't want to change yet another part of Tika :) But if you ask me, I would try to keep the prefixes out of the names. What would be your proposal then how to handle this transition may it be with prefixes or not? Thanks Jörg
