[Developers] More information on '/type/reflect'

[Sumit]

Hi John,
Thanks for getting back. Here's what I am trying to do. We have a database
of people names along with some facts like which company they work or worked
for, whats their profession, etc. I am working on a prototype to see if we
can resolve these names to freebase ids (or how many of them with the info
we have).

The CVT problem sounds like a 'foreign key' implementation in rdbms. In
rdbms you would have Peter Jackson related to a 'key' which is pointing to
an actual value. Here we have a relation between him and a guid (that holds
relation between Peter Jackson and Weta Digital). If it was a rdbms one
would do a join, I am not sure on how to solve it in this case. I am sure
MQL will have something like join one day (or may it has it already!!!!).

I tried the query below to find out if I can find a link between Peter
Jackson and his employment_tenure, to see if I can get an guid for the
relation. Thinking, I can query this guid again and see if it has Peter's
name mentioned in it for the resolution issue.
[
  {
    "master_property" : null,
    "reverse" : null,
    "source" : {
      "id" : null,
      "name" : "peter jackson",
      "type" : "/people/person"
    },
    "target" : {
      "id" : null,
      "type" : "/business/employment_tenure"
    },
    "type" : "/type/link"
  }
]

But it doesn't return anything. If I try the simple query below
[
  {
    "employment_history" : {},
    "id" : "/en/peter_jackson",
    "name" : "peter jackson",
    "type" : "/people/person"
  }
]

in the properties of employment history I do see the guid and type. So looks
like there is a link/relation between Peter Jackson and this object.

Would greatly appreciate if can help me to understand what am I missing
here? Is there a way to specify Peter Jackson and Weta Digital in a single
query (it is ok if i have to specify the link upfront).

Thanks again.
Sumit






On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 11:41 PM, John Giannandrea <jg at metaweb.com> wrote:

>
> Sumit wrote:
>
> My subject, Peter Jackson, a New Zealand national and a screenwriter, is
> married to Fran Walsh and works for Weta Digital. However if I try the
> generic query with these names rather than 'new zealand' or 'screenwriter' I
> don't get down to the subject. Fran Walsh and Weta Digital do not appear to
> be linked *directly *to Peter Jackson, it looks like there is a relation
> 'spouse' or 'employer' which has a value.
>
>
> This in general is called the CVT problem.  Some relationships have an
> additional object modeling the relationship.    Its possible to query for
> any link to any object with any link and so on, but you need to know which
> links you want to do this for.   We have some code that can do this in
> general, but if you know which specific links you are trying to follow its
> easier.
>
> Could you describe some more what you are trying to do, from an application
> perspective, and then perhaps we can steer you in a specific query
> direction...
>
> -jg
>
>
>
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