ISO/IEC 13250:2000
(Main)Information technology — SGML Applications — Topic Maps
Information technology — SGML Applications — Topic Maps
Technologies de l'information — Applications SGML — Plans relatifs à des sujets
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Standards Content (Sample)
INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 13250
First edition
2000-02-01
Information technology— SGML
Applications— Topic Maps
Technologies de l'information — Applications SGML — Plans relatifs à des
sujets
Reference number
ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2000
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ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
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ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
Contents
1. Scope . 1
2. Normative references . 1
3. Definitions . 2
3.1 added themes .2
3.2 association .2
3.3 association link .2
3.4 association role .2
3.5 association type .2
3.6 base name .2
3.7 bounded object set (BOS) .3
3.8 display name .3
3.9 facet .3
3.10 facet link .3
3.11 facet type .3
3.12 facet value .3
3.13 hub document .3
3.14 occurrence role .3
3.15 public subject descriptor .3
3.16 scope .3
3.17 sort name .4
3.18 subject .4
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ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
3.19 subject descriptor .4
3.20 theme .4
3.21 topic .5
3.22 topic association .5
3.23 topic characteristic .5
3.24 topic characteristic assignment .5
3.25 topic link .5
3.26 topic map .5
3.27 topic name .6
3.28 topic occurrence .6
3.29 topic type .6
3.30 unconstrained scope .6
4. Notation . 6
4.1 RCS name, full name, description, and clause .7
4.2 Constraints .7
4.3 Note .8
5. Topic Maps architecture . 8
5.1 Topic Map Architectural Form .8
5.2 Topic link .10
5.2.1 Topic Link Architectural Form . 10
5.2.2 Topic Name Architectural Form . 12
5.2.3 Topic Occurrence Architectural Form . 15
5.3 Association Link .18
5.3.1 Association Link Architectural Form . 18
5.3.2 Association Role Architectural Form . 19
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ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
5.4 Themes To Be Added Architectural Form .21
5.5 Facet Linking .22
5.5.1 Facet Link Architectural Form . 23
5.5.2 Facet Value Architectural Form . 24
6. Conformance .25
Annexes .27
A. Annex A: Topic Maps Meta-DTD (Normative) .27
B. Annex B: Example Architectural Support Declaration for the Topic Maps
Architecture (Informative) .39
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ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International
Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization.
National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International
Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with
particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of
mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison
with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives,
Part 3.
In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1. Draft International Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are
circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as an International Standard requires approval
by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this International Standard may be
the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all
such patent rights.
International Standard ISO/IEC 13250 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1,
Information technology, Subcommittee SC 34, Document description and processing languages.
Annex A forms a normative part of this International Standard. Annex B is for information only.
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ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
Introduction
This International Standard provides a standardized notation for interchangeably representing
information about the structure of information resources used to define topics, and the relationships
between topics. A set of one or more interrelated documents that employs the notation defined by
this International Standard is called a topic map. In general, the structural information conveyed
by topic maps includes:
— groupings of addressable information objects around topics (‘occurrences’), and
— relationships between topics (‘associations’).
A topic map defines a multidimensional topic space — a space in which the locations are topics,
and in which the distances between topics are measurable in terms of the number of intervening
topics which must be visited in order to get from one topic to another, and the kinds of
relationships that define the path from one topic to another, if any, through the intervening topics,
if any.
NOTE 1 Two topics may be connected through an association, and they can also be connected by virtue of sharing an
occurrence.
In addition, information objects can have properties, as well as values for those properties,
assigned to them externally. These properties are called facet types.
NOTE 2 The word facet can mean one side of a many-sided, polished object, or one segment of a compound eye (e.g. an
insect's). Its metaphorical use here captures the idea that a facet is a property of a set of information objects that can be
used to create a view of them.
Several topic maps can provide topical structure information about the same information resources.
The Topic Maps architecture is designed to facilitate merging topic maps without requiring the
merged topic maps to be copied or modified. Because of their extrinsic character, topic maps can
be thought of as overlays on, or extensions to, sets of information objects.
The base notation of Topic Maps is SGML; an interchangeable topic map always consists of at
least one SGML document, and it may include and/or refer to other kinds information resources. A
set of information resources that comprise a complete interchangeable topic map can be specified
using the ‘bounded object set (BOS)’ facility defined by the HyTime architecture in ISO/IEC
10744:1997.
As the Extensible Markup Language (XML), a World Wide Web Consortium recommendation, is
a subset of SGML, as explained in Annex K of SGML (1997), also known as WebSGML, XML
can be also used as a base notation for Topic Maps.
The topic map notation is defined as an SGML Architecture, and this International Standard takes
the form of an architecture definition document expressed in conformance with Normative Annex
A.3 of ISO/IEC 10744:1997, the SGML Architectural Form Definition Requirements (AFDR). The
formal definition of the topic map notation is expressed as a meta-DTD.
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© ISO/IEC
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 13250:2000(E)
Information technology — SGML Applications — Topic Maps
1 Scope
NOTE 1 This clause defines the scope of this International standard. It should not be confused with the concept of
"scope" defined in 3.16, which only applies in the context of Topic Maps.
Topic maps enable multiple, concurrent views of sets of information objects. The structural nature
of these views is unconstrained; they may reflect an object oriented approach, or they may be
relational, hierarchical, ordered, unordered, or any combination of the foregoing. Moreover, an
unlimited number of topic maps may be overlaid on a given set of information resources.
Topic maps can be used:
— To qualify the content and/or data contained in information objects as topics to enable
navigational tools such as indexes, cross-references, citation systems, or glossaries.
— To link topics together in such a way as to enable navigation between them. This capability can
be used for virtual document assembly, and for creating thesaurus-like interfaces to corpora,
knowledge bases, etc.
— To filter an information set to create views adapted to specific users or purposes. For example,
such filtering can aid in the management of multilingual documents, management of access
modes depending on security criteria, delivery of partial views depending on user profiles and/
or knowledge domains, etc.
— To structure unstructured information objects, or to facilitate the creation of topic-oriented user
interfaces that provide the effect of merging unstructured information bases with structured
ones. The overlay mechanism of topic maps can be considered as a kind of external markup
mechanism, in the sense that an arbitrary structure is imposed on the information without
altering its original form.
This International Standard does not require or disallow the use of any scheme for addressing
information objects. Except for the requirement that topic map documents themselves be expressed
using SGML (or WebSGML) and HyTime, using the syntax described herein, neither does it
require or disallow the use of any notation used to express information.
2 Normative references
The following normative documents contain provisions which, through reference in this text, constitute
provisions of this International Standard. For dated references, subsequent amendments to, or revisions of,
any of these publications do not apply. However, parties to agreements based on this International Standard
are encouraged to investigate the possibility of applying the most recent editions of the normative documents
indicated below. For undated references, the latest edition of the normative document referred to applies.
Members of ISO and IEC maintain registers of currently valid International Standards.
ISO 8879:1986, Information processing — Text and office systems — Standard Generalized
Markup Language (SGML), including Technical Corrigenda 1, 2, and 3.
ISO 10744:1997, Information processing — Text and office systems — Hypermedia/Time-based
Structuring Language (HyTime), including Amendment 1.
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3 Definitions
For the purposes of this International Standard; the following definitions apply.
The definitions provided in ISO 8879:1986 (including TC1, TC2 and TC3) and ISO/IEC
10744:1997 (including Amendment 1) shall apply to this International Standard.
3.1 added themes
Topics added to the sets of themes comprising the scopes within which topics have their topic
characteristics. Added themes can be specified in two ways:
a) Within the topic map document whose scopes are affected, by means of the added themes
(addthems) attribute of the document element. The specified themes are added to the scopes of
all of the topic characteristics which are assigned to topics via the topic links and association
links contained in the document.
b) Inside or outside the topic map document whose scopes are affected, by means of elements
conforming to the themes to be added (addthms) architectural form. The specified themes are
added to the topic characteristics assigned to topics via:
— entire topic map documents (specified via the tmdocs attribute),
— topic links (that is, the name characteristics and occurrence characteristics assigned to topics via
topic links) (specified via the cassign attribute),
— association links (that is, the roles played in associations by topics, as assigned to topics via
association links) (specified via the cassign attribute), or
— any combination of the foregoing.
3.2 association
See ‘topic association’.
3.3 association link
A hyperlink element conforming to the association link architectural form defined by this
International Standard. See 5.3.
3.4 association role
One of the roles that topics play in a given topic association.
3.5 association type
a) A subject which is a class of topic associations.
b) One of the classes of topic associations of which a particular association link is an instance. The
association types of which a given association link is an instance can be specified by its optional
types attribute.
3.6 base name
a) A subelement (basename) of a topname subelement of a topic link.
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b) A name characteristic of a topic that is specified in the content of a basename element.
3.7 bounded object set (BOS)
A set of one or more documents and other information objects, all of which are known to the
processing application and which are processed collectively. See ISO/IEC 10744:1997 for details;
see also the definition of ‘hub document’.
3.8 display name
a) A subelement (dispname) of a topname subelement of a topic link, containing the identifying
information intended to be displayed by the application to represent the subject of the topic link.
b) A name characteristic of a topic that is specified in the content of a dispname element.
3.9 facet
a) The subset of information objects that share an externally-applied property.
b) The values given to a particular property externally applied to a set of information objects.
3.10 facet link
A hyperlink that applies values for a given property (as well as the property itself) to one or more
information objects.
3.11 facet type
A property applied by one or more facet links to one or more objects.
3.12 facet value
A member of the set of all values of a particular facet type.
3.13 hub document
The HyTime document used to define the set of information resources (the bounded object set
(BOS)) that comprise a HyTime hyperdocument. Applications may regard the HyTime document
used as the entry point for a browsing session within a hyperdocument as the hub document. See
ISO/IEC 10744:1997 for details. By definition, a topic map is a HyTime hyperdocument, and any
topic map document can be regarded as a hub document.
3.14 occurrence role
The sense in which some set of occurrences is relevant to a topic. In the Topic Maps architecture,
occurrence roles are specified as anchor roles (as defined in the HyTime architecture) of topic links.
3.15 public subject descriptor
A subject descriptor (see the definition of ‘subject descriptor’) which is used (or, especially, which
is designed to be used) as a common referent of the identity attributes of many topic links in many
topic maps. The subject described by the subject descriptor is thus easily recognized as the
common binding point of all the topic links that reference it, so that they will be merged.
3.16 scope
NOTE 2 The definition of scope provided here should not be confused with 1, entitled ‘Scope’, which defines the scope
of this International Standard.
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The extent of the validity of a topic characteristic assignment (see the definition of ‘topic
characteristic assignment’): the context in which a name or an occurrence is assigned to a given
topic, and the context in which topics are related through associations. This International Standard
does not require that scopes be specified explicitly. If the scope of a topic characteristic assignment
is not explicitly specified via one or more scope attributes, the scope within which the topic
characteristic applies to the topic includes all the topics in the entire topic map; this special scope is
called ‘the unconstrained scope’. If a scope is specified, the specification consists of a set of topics,
which, in the context of their role as members of such a set, are called ‘themes’. Each theme
contributes to the extent of the scope that the themes collectively define; a given scope is the union
of the subjects of the set of themes used to specify that scope.
NOTE 3 If it is desired to specify a scope which is the intersection (rather than the union) of two topics, this can be
accomplished by creating a topic whose subject is that intersection, and then by using that topic as a theme.
3.17 sort name
a) A subelement (sortname) of a topname subelement of a topic link, containing a string that is an
alternative representation of a topic name that is intended to be used for alphabetic or other
ordering.
b) A name characteristic of a topic that is specified in the content of a sortname element.
3.18 subject
In the most generic sense, a ‘subject’ is any thing whatsoever, regardless of whether it exists or has
any other specific characteristics, about which anything whatsoever may be asserted by any means
whatsoever.
NOTE 4 The invisible heart of every topic link is the subject that its author had in mind when it was created. In some
sense, a topic link reifies a subject. The identity attribute of a topic link is provided to allow the author of the topic link
to indicate, as unambiguously as possible, the subject he had in mind as the organizing principle of the topic. See the
definition of ‘subject descriptor’.
3.19 subject descriptor
Information which is intended to provide a positive, unambiguous indication of the identity of a
subject, and which is the referent of an identity attribute of a topic link. (See also the definition of
‘public subject descriptor’.)
NOTE 5 There is no requirement that a subject descriptor be text, although it can be the text of a definition of the subject.
It can also, for example, be a listing in a catalog of subjects, such as an acquisition number of an asset in a museum
collection, a catalog number in a sales catalog, or a subject heading in a catalog of library subject headings. The
distinction between a subject descriptor that happens to be a definition and an ordinary occurrence of a definition is that,
in the case of the subject descriptor, the topic link's author has indicated (by referring to it by means of the value of the
identity attribute) that it is to be regarded as the authoritative definition of the organizing principle of the topic link. In the
other case, by characterizing a definition as a definitional occurrence, the author is merely acknowledging the existence
of the definition and its possible relevance to the subject of the topic link.
NOTE 6 Subject descriptors may be offline resources.
3.20 theme
A member of the set of topics comprising a scope within which a topic characteristic assignment is
valid. See also the definitions of ‘scope’ and ‘topic’.
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3.21 topic
a) An aggregate of topic characteristics, including zero or more names, occurrences, and roles
played in associations with other topics, whose organizing principle is a single subject.
b) A topic link element. See 5.2.
3.22 topic association
a) A specific relationship among specific topics that is asserted by an association link element.
b) An association link element. See 5.3.
3.23 topic characteristic
Any defining characteristic of a topic. There are three kinds of topic characteristics:
a) names,
b) occurrences, and
c) roles played in relationships (‘associations’) with other topics.
For example, a name of a topic is a ‘name characteristic’ of that topic.
3.24 topic characteristic assignment
a) The mechanism whereby a topic characteristic becomes a characteristic of a topic. For example,
topname subelements of topic link elements are used to assign names to topics as topic
characteristics, so, in topic map documents, they perform the function of assigning topic name
characteristics.
b) The fact that a particular topic characteristic is a characteristic of a particular topic.
3.25 topic link
A hyperlink element conforming to the topic link architectural form defined in 5.2 by this
International Standard.
NOTE 7 In this International Standard, the foregoing definition is invoked by the phrase ‘topic link’, or, since the default
SGML name of the topic link architectural form is ‘topic’, by the special typography used to distinguish SGML names
(i.e., topic).
NOTE 8 See also the definition of ‘topic’.
3.26 topic map
a) A set of information resources regarded by a topic map application as a bounded object set
whose hub document is a topic map document conforming to the SGML architecture defined by
this International Standard.
b) Any topic map document conforming to the SGML architecture defined by this International
Standard, or the document element (topicmap) of such a document.
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c) The document element type (topicmap) of the topic map document architecture.
3.27 topic name
a) A string of characters specified as a name of a topic; a name characteristic of a topic.
b) A topic name (topname) element, as defined by this International Standard.
c) Either a base name (basename), display name (dispname) or name to be used as sort key
(sortname) element, as defined by this International Standard, and/or the information that such
an element contains.
d) A combination of the foregoing definitions.
3.28 topic occurrence
Information that is specified as relevant to a given subject.
NOTE 9 Topic occurrences may be offline resources.
3.29 topic type
a) A subject which is a class of topics.
b) One of the classes of topics of which a particular topic link is an instance. The topic types of
which a given topic link is an instance can be specified via its optional types attribute.
3.30 unconstrained scope
The scope comprised of all of the topics in a topic map. When no applicable scope attributes are
explicitly specified as governing a topic characteristic assignment, the scope within which the topic
characteristic assignment is made is the unconstrained scope.
NOTE 10 In other words, the unconstrained scope is the default scope. Thus, for example, in a given topic map, if no
scope attributes are explicitly specified for the name characteristics of any topics, any two topic links that have any of the
same names will be merged, due to the effect of the topic naming constraint.
4 Notation
Topic Maps is an enabling document architecture whose
...
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