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# Identifiable Entities

*This page is to discuss the use of Identifiable Entities*

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### Definition

Superclass for the primary CDM classes that can be referenced from outside via LSIDs and contain a simple generated title string as a label for human reading.

All subclasses inherit the ability to store additional properties that are stored as source:"trunk/cdmlib/cdmlib-model/src/main/java/eu/etaxonomy/cdm/model/common/Extension.java", basically a string value with a type term.

Any number of right statements can be attached as well as multiple source:"trunk/cdmlib/cdmlib-model/src/main/java/eu/etaxonomy/cdm/model/common/OriginalSource.java" objects. 

Original sources carry a reference to the source, an ID within that source and the original title/label of this object as it was used in that source (originalNameString).

A Taxon for example that was taken from 2 sources like FaunaEuropaea and IPNI would have two originalSource objects.

The original source representing that taxon as it was found in IPNI would contain IPNI as the reference, the IPNI id of the taxon and the name of the taxon exactly as it was used in IPNI.

see source:"trunk/cdmlib/cdmlib-model/src/main/java/eu/etaxonomy/cdm/model/common/IdentifiableEntity.java@latest#L50"

### Best Practices

#### use of title cache

* To use the title cache in a multi-language environment in an expedient way the title cache should be created independent from the language. This means that the according cache strategy may not make use of language dependent attributes.

* If the above can not be assured one can not use the title cache for sorting in a database query. Sorting instead must be done either by the client application or by using representations (representations are language dependent). Be aware of the drawbacks of this method being a result of the missing restrictions on representations to be available for each any language needed.

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