4. Exporting the Topic Map

Table of Contents

Export Configuration
Controlling the Base URI of the Topic Map
Controlling Use of Model Name
Controlling Export Reification
Class-Instance and Subclass-Superclass Associations

The current version of TMTab does not read in XTM files, nor does it maintain the ontology in XTM format. However it is possible to export the TMTab topic map ontology as an XTM file for further processing by topic map tools (such as loading into a topic map viewer application like TMNav). The export process is controlled from the tab labelled "Topic Map!.

To export a file, simply specify the name of the file to be written (you can use the Browse button to locate a file using a standard Java File Save dialog), then click "Export".

Note

If the file you specify already exists, it will be overwritten.

Export Configuration

You can create an store one or more Export Configuration records as part of your Protégé project. These configurations control certain aspects of how TMTab creates the XTM file. Export Configuration records are simply created and manipulated like any other object in Protégé. To create a new Export Configuration record, go to the Instances tab of Protégé and create a new instance of the class TMTAB-EXPORT-CONFIGURATION. The following form may be used to set the confguration options:

Figure 4.1. The TMTab Export Configuration Form

Enter a name for the configuration in the field labelled "Configuration Name". Currently, the only configuration options available control how the contents of the Model Name slot are treated by TMTab during export, and what level of additional information will be exported by the reification of the topic map constructs created during the export.

Controlling the Base URI of the Topic Map

The value specified in the field labelled "Base URI" must be a valid URI. This value will be written as the xml:base attribute value of the exported XTM file. Typically, this will cause a topic map processor to resolve any links to other documents contained in the topic map to be resolved relative to this base URI rather than resolving them relative to the address of the topic map file itself. This option is especially useful when creating topic maps which are to be modules of a larger integrated set.

Controlling Use of Model Name

In the "Export Model Name" drop-down list you may choose from "As Base Name", "As ID" and "No".

Choosing "As Base Name" will result in the value of the Model Name string being used to generate a Base Name for the object. If the object is not itself a topic (i.e. not an instance of the TOPIC class), a new topic may be created that reifies the object (see the details for the Reification Option discussed below) and that topic will be assigned the Base Name. You can specify a scope for this generated Base Name by adding TOPIC instances to the list box labelled "Model Name Scope".

Choosing "As ID" will result in the value of the Model Name string being used to generate the value of the ID attribute of the XTM element which represents that object.

Warning

Use this option with caution, as TMTab does not ensure the required uniqueness constraint of ID attribute values. If you have duplicate Model Name values for different objects you may find that TMTab will either generate errors or else will silently combine Topics with the same ID. Ideally, if using this option, you should encode some additional Protégé constraints to ensure uniqueness of this slot value.

The ID attribute values generated by this means can be URL encoded to ensure that they are valid for use as part of a URI. To have this encoding performed, check the box labelled "Encode ID". Additionally, ID attribute values which begin with a digit will have an additional underscore ('_') character prepended to ensure that they are valid XML/SGML ID values.

Choosing "No" simply ignores the Model Name slot value completely and its value is not used in generating the XTM file at all.

Controlling Export Reification

The drop-down list labelled "Reification Options" can be used to control how the export process will represent additional information specified in the Protégé project which is not directly representable in the export of a topic map object. In the Protégé model all topic map constructs are subclasses of topic, this means that any topic map construct may be named, given occurrences, participate in an association and so on. In XTM syntax, for anything other than a topic, this is achieved by creating another topic which "reifies" the construct. It is this additional topic which gets the names and occurrences and which plays the role in associations - it is essentially used as a stand-in for the construct that it reifies.

TMTab allows four different levels of reification:

"Never" - no reifying topics are ever created, if you have specified additional names, or occurrences for a construct or you have put it as a member in one or more associations in the Protégé model, that information will be lost in the exported XTM.
"If Necessary" - if you have specified names or occurrences for the object, or if you have specified more than one type for the object, then the reifying topic will be exported to carry all of the additional information. Note, however that with this level, the Model Name slot will never be treated as providing an additional name.
"If Has Model Name" - exports a reifying topic in all of the cases specified for the "If Necessary" case and also will treat the Model Name slot as providing an additional name if the "As BaseName" option is selected in the "Export Model Name" selection list.
"Always" - will always result in a reifying topic for the object, even if there is no additional information provided by thie topic. This option is unlikely to be very much use, but is provided for completeness.