Hierarchy of Elements¶

This section describes the way in which different DEXTL elements can be arranged inside of a DEXTL program.

A DEXTL program can be composed of several “root” elements (that is, which are not subelements of another parent element).

A DEXTL element might contain:

• A name given to the tuples of the relation represented by the element. The syntax is:

  NAME=”Element Name”

• A DEXTL pattern. It will be formed by:

  • The tagset that is going to be used in this pattern. Its declaration must appear at the beginning of the pattern with the following syntax:

  • Nested sub-elements which represent subrelations (see section Relations and Subrelations). Subelements can have the same components than a root element, and they can also specify an additional parameter; this represents the attribute name of the parent element which will contain all the data tuples of the subelements. If not indicated, this parameter will have the same name specified for each tuple of the sub-element (through the NAME parameter). The syntax is:

    LISTNAME=”List Name”

• Both element types (root or sub-element ones) may have a tag which defines the end of the element, called TO pattern (its syntax was described in the section Relations and Subrelations).

  • In the case of a sub-element, when the TO pattern is found, the search for tuples continues back in the parent element.

  • In the case of a main element, when the TO pattern is found, the page continues to be analysed, looking for occurrences of the next main element. If there are no more main elements available, the process ends. The end of page is also considered as an end-of-element tag for any element.

There are two ways for defining sub-elements:

• Between symbols { and }: the tuples which have been extracted for a sub-element will be considered as the value of an attribute of type subrelation, associated with the parent element. For example, if we have an element called MOVIE with atomic attributes TITLE, ACTOR and a subelement EDITION with atomic attributes FORMAT and PRICE, the schema of the data returned to the application would be: {TITLE, ACTOR, EDITION{ FORMAT, PRICE}}.

• Between symbols {* and *}: attributes extracted from the parent element are added to each child sub-element. That is, the retrieved results are “flattened” before being returned to the application. For example, if we have an element called MOVIE with atomic attributes TITLE, ACTOR and a subelement EDITION with atomic attributes FORMAT and PRICE, the schema of the data returned to the application would be: {TITLE, ACTOR, FORMAT, PRICE}.