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SKOS API Development Area

Let's talk about the SKOS SOAP API ...

SOAP

Well... it sucks. I tried to access several SOAP Servers written in Java with PHP, Perl and Python and you always get annoying typecast or namespaces errors. SOAP not simple but overhead. Why don't we use a simple REST API? The SOAP API at http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/skosapi.html is not maintained anyway, isn't it?

Web Service Methods

This is just a suggestion of an API that is simpler that the first SOAP API

getConcept

Parameters:

concept: URI

Returns: a concept by a known URI

getConceptByExternalID

Get a concept by its non-URI ID for a particular thesaurus ??

getConceptByPreferredLabel

Parameters:

label: string with a preferred label
kos: URI of a particular KOS (optional, use all as default)
lang: preferred language (optional, use all languages as default)

Returns: a concept by its preferred label (or a list of concepts!)

getConceptRelatives

Parameters:

concept: URI
relation: semantic relation (optional, use all relation as default)
kos: URI of a particular KOS (optional, use all as default)
distance (optional, default is 1)

Returns: a list of all concept relatives with a semantic relation

TODO: How to order concepts

getConceptsMatchingKeyword

Parameters:

keyword: string

Returns:

a list of concepts matching a keyword

TODO: What exactely is a keyword?

getConceptsMatchingRegex

Parameters:

regexp: Regular Expression
kos: URI of a particular KOS (optional, use all as default)

Returns:

a list of concepts matching a regex

TODO: There a several syntax specifications for regular expressions. Which one to use?

getSupportedSemanticRelations

Parameters:

kos: URI of a particular KOS (optional, use all as default)

Returns:

a list of supported semantic relations

getTopConcepts

TODO

getTopmostConcepts

Parameters:

kos: URI of a particular KOS (optional, use all as default)

TODO

Return types

(list of) concepts
(list of) relations