EDIT

We need the possibility to link to other CDM / external objects from within a text (e.g. a description or an annotation). Currently links are only possible for the whole block, which is often not good enough.

We may want to have a hypertext like possibility to link e.g.

 "lore ipsum <TaxonName id=2 uuid=...>Abies alba Mill.</TaxonName> ipsum lore...

One problem to solve is that during deduplication / deleting, these links may become unstable. The according link information needs to be updated or deleted. Also we do not get a ForeignKey constraint violation during delete which prevents us from deleting.

We may create a class which stands for an inline reference. It holds foreign keys to all relevant classes referenced classes (Names, References, Specimen, Agents, ...) and it can be referenced from e.g. LanguageString or Annotation. This way we keep the foreign key information.

The class also holds information about where in the text the information is to be found (not necessarily required as this can be found easily by searching the text).

The IntextReference structure could also be used for linking to external sources via URIs.

Open issues:

• Does the class need to be versionable to allow auditing?

• Do we need to add it to JAXB? Data can be reconstructed using the tag information also