EDIT

feature request #10196

Updated by Andreas Müller over 1 year ago

copied from #10133#note-1 

 some structures can also be used as states in a character matrix. We need to decide how to handle them. 
 Solutions are: 

 1. Duplicate them (and link to each other) 
 2. Create a new term type "Structure-State" (or "State-Structure") 
 3. Handle as special structures that can be used in state context, too 
 4. Handle as special states that can be used in structure context, too 
 5. any other 

 Solution 1: 

 * Pro: easy to implement, mostly on data level, only the way how to link them needs to be discussed 
 * Con: redundancy on all levels (editing, snynchronization, evaluation, ...) 

 Solution 2: 

 Pro: No redundancy 
 * Con:  
      * the current term model requires that these terms come in a separate vocabulary as vocabularies only allow terms of the same term type (and of a subtype? - needs to be checked!);  
      * same problem in the structure tree (TermGraphBase); 
      * same problem with state tree/list (TermGraphBase) 
      * Class State preferrably changed to DefinedTerm to make StateData.state work with hybrid structures, too (also Feature.supportedCategoricalEnumerations, but maybe not a strict requirement) 
     
 Solution 3: 

 * Pro: No redundancy 
 * Con:  
      * problem with state tree/list (TermGraphBase) 
      * Class State preferrably changed to DefinedTerm to make StateData.state work with hybrid structures, too (also Feature.supportedCategoricalEnumerations, but maybe not a strict requirement) 

 Solution 4: 

 * Pro: No redundancy 
 * Con:  
      * Character.structure needs to be adapted to allow a state, too 
      * structure tree (TermGraphBase) needs to be adapted, to allow states, too, at least for kind-of relationships 

 Solution 5: ?? 


 Some ideas: 

 * maybe *State* (or StateData.state) needs to be much more flexibel anyway, not only for descriptions but also for other types of CategoricalData. Generally a State is an entry in a selection list for a given feature. In the most general way it could be any CdmBase. But even less general one can imagine that *each DefinedTermBase could be a possible entry* . So if we do want to allow this State might be only a default for values that are not available elsewhere. E.g. some databases handle endemism as separate feature while the default is to handle it as a distribution with one of the endemic status. "Endemic (for the given area)" this way could stay a distribution status (PresenceAbsenceTerm) while it can still be used as a state in CategoricalData. 
 Are there any serious issues if we handle it this way?  

 * The structure-state terms always seem to be kind-of structures related to their parent (NoK: Ja ich glaube so ist das) 

 Open issues: 

 * fix "FIXME 10196" 
 * think about sub-termtype "Character States"

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