[BioSQL-l] synonyms for ontology terms

[Matthew Pocock]

Hi Hilmar,

Would it not be better to represent this inside the ontology itself? If 
we had a well-known predicate 'synonym' then we can use the tripples 
table to associate a concept with its synonyms. This will be come just 
as efficient as a term_synonym table once the transient closures table 
is populated. It also removes one more block of special case code - we 
can look up synonyms and antonyms and identities and isas and hasas with 
the same code without extra tables. My rule of thumb is that any info 
that relates terms to one another should be in the ontology itself, and 
never in an extra table.

Matthew

Hilmar Lapp wrote:
> We need one more table for a full representation of ontology terms to 
> record their synonyms. The table can be quite minimalist:
> 
>     CREATE TABLE term_synonym (
>         synonym       VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
>         term_id          INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
>         --
>         FOREIGN KEY (term_id) REFERENCES term (term_id),
>         UNIQUE (term_id,synonym);
>     );
> 
> Has anyone any objections to this or better ideas how to capture 
> synonyms of terms?
> 
>     -hilmar


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