Mandatory/repeatable and the vocabulary definitions

[Karen Coyle]

Phil pointed out that the definitions of mandatory and repeatable in the vocabulary file limit them to the property itself:

mandatory

Indicates whether or not the property must be present in the metadata. This is a Boolean value: "true" or "false", or "1" or "0".

repeatable

Indicates whether or not the property can be repeated in the metadata. This is a Boolean value: "true" or "false", or "1" or "0".

This conflicts with the idea of the statement constraint being taken as a whole, both as defined and in validation. Thus, a statement constraint such as:

shapeID	shapeLabel	propertyID	propertyLabel	mandatory	repeatable	valueNodeType	valueDataType	valueConstraint	valueConstraintType	valueShape	note
subject		dct:subject	subject	true	true	LITERAL	xsd:string	@en,@fr	languageTag
		dct:subject	subject	false	true	IRI		http://id.loc.gov	IRIstem

would mean that a literal with language tag @de would not match the statement constraint, and that a subject with an IRIstem other than id.loc.gov would also not match. The statement in the vocabulary definition would result in dct:subject being mandatory regardless of the constraints on the value.

If we agree that the TAP unit which defines the instance metadata is the statement constraint, not the propertyID, then I would change the vocabulary file to read:

mandatory

Indicates whether or not the metadata must contain a statement that is consistent with this statement constraint. This is a Boolean value: "true" or "false", or "1" or "0".

repeatable

Indicates whether or not the metadata may contain multiple instances of statements that are consistent with this statement constraint. This is a Boolean value: "true" or "false", or "1" or "0".

I'm also thinking that one section of the cookbook should talk about the relationship between TAP and validation. Although first we need to figure that out.

[Karen Coyle]

Change made and approved at November 11 meeting.