commondata 0.0.2

A structured collection of common knowledge

Note: we are discussing whether this package is meaningful. See http://lino-framework.org/tickets/109.html

This package is the heart of “common data”, a sustainable way of maintaining and sharing structured common knowledge. The Python package itself contains just some utilities and defines the commondata namespace. It is the base for packages like

• commondata.be : Common knowledge about Belgium

• commondata.ee: Common knowledge about Estonia

• commondata.eg: Common knowledge about Egypt

Features

Maintained in Python

The Python programming language brings together two qualities

• a syntax which makes it easy (or at least possible) to be used by non-programmers

• a powerful programming language working behind the scenes

Freely available under the GPL

Free software should not depend on non-free material.

Designed to be imported

The library does not provide much querying functionality. Just the basic minimum, used to write test cases. This is a design choice. This data is meant to be imported into existing systems which offer their own querying facilities.

Installation

• The easiest way is to type:

  pip install commondata.ee commondata.be

• Alternatively you might prefer to use the development version:

  $ git clone https://github.com/lsaffre/commondata.git
  $ git clone https://github.com/lsaffre/commondata-ee.git
  $ git clone https://github.com/lsaffre/commondata-be.git
  
  $ pip install -e commondata
  $ pip install -e commondata.ee
  $ pip install -e commondata.be

Online version of this document on https://github.com/lsaffre/commondata

Utilities

How to use the Place and PlaceGenerator classes.

You define a subclass of Place for each “type” of place:

>>> from commondata.utils import Place, PlaceGenerator
>>> class PlaceInFoo(Place):
...     def __str__(self):
...        return self.name
>>> class Kingdom(PlaceInFoo):
...     value = 1
>>> class County(PlaceInFoo):
...     value = 2
>>> class Borough(PlaceInFoo):
...     value = 3
>>> class Village(PlaceInFoo):
...     value = 3

The PlaceGenerator is used to instantiate to populate

Part 1 : configuration:

>>> pg = PlaceGenerator()
>>> pg.install(Kingdom, County, Borough, Village)
>>> pg.set_args('name')

Part 2 : filling data

>>> root = pg.kingdom("Kwargia")
>>> def fill(pg):
...    pg.county("Kwargia")
...    pg.borough("Kwargia")
...    pg.village("Virts")
...    pg.village("Vinks")
...    pg.county("Gorgia")
...    pg.village("Girts")
...    pg.village("Ginks")

>>> fill(pg)

Part 3 : using the data

>>> [str(x) for x in root.children]
['Kwargia', 'Gorgia']
>>> kwargia = root.children[0]
>>> [str(x) for x in kwargia.children]
['Kwargia', 'Virts', 'Vinks']

Multilingual place names

You use the commondata.utils.PlaceGenerator.set_args() method to specify the names of the fields of subsequent places.

>>> pg = PlaceGenerator()
>>> pg.install(Kingdom, County, Borough, Village)
>>> pg.set_args('name name_ar')
>>> root = pg.kingdom("Egypt", u'\u0645\u0635\u0631')
>>> print(root.name_ar)
مصر