Output of the check command

[jneubert]

With the following input

source, target, annotation
124825109, psn9, "Dennis Snower (GND PRESENT AND LINKED)"
170947386, phi58, "Christian von Hirschhausen (GND PRESENT BUT NOT LINKED)"
114008787, pwy2, "Charles Wyplosz (GND NOT PRESENT)"
124825109, pxx999, "Dennis SNOWER (GND PRESENT BUT LINKED TO DIFFERENT TARGET)"
123292182, psn9, "Leo H. Klaassen (GND PRESENT AND NOT LINKED BUT LINK TARGET EXISTS ALREADY)"

the current version (0.0.7) gives the output

$ wdmapper check P227 P2428 -i  tests/gnd_repec_test.csv
#FORMAT: BEACON
#NAME: RePEc Short-ID
#DESCRIPTION: Mapping from GND IDs to RePEc Short-IDs
#PREFIX: http://d-nb.info/gnd/
#TARGET: https://authors.repec.org/pro/

~ 124825109|Q1189225|psn9
+ 170947386|Christian von Hirschhausen (GND PRESENT BUT NOT LINKED)|phi58
- 170947386|Q1082503
+ 114008787|Charles Wyplosz (GND NOT PRESENT)|pwy2
+ 124825109|Dennis SNOWER (GND PRESENT BUT LINKED TO DIFFERENT TARGET)|pxx999
- 124825109|Q1189225|psn9
+ 123292182|Leo H. Klaassen (GND PRESENT AND NOT LINKED BUT LINK TARGET EXISTS ALREADY)|psn9
- 124825109|Q1189225|psn9
- 123292182|Q18817490

[jneubert]

I'm not sure how to make sense of the actual output. What I would expect is that the output of check allows to distinguish the different cases, as indicated in parentheses in the input file. But frankly, I don't understand the relation between input and output, even considering https://wdmapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/commands.html#check.
Is the beacon-like format of the output required for some postprocessing you have in mind? It is quite constricting, in that it codes the outcome in the first character in the line, and it offers no fields for additional information such as the ID of a found Wikidata item.
Perhaps that is the reason, than some input lines produce more than one output line. In my eyes, this makes the parsing of the output much more difficult (for humans as well as for machines), because you have to check for follow-up lines.

[jneubert]

Line by line

124825109, psn9, "Dennis Snower (GND PRESENT AND LINKED)"

~ 124825109|Q1189225|psn9

The output should

• identify the input line. For machines, the source ID is fine, but for humans it would be nice to include the annotation
• give the ID of the found Wikidata item
• state that the link already exists

In my eyes, there is no need of

• repeating the target ID
• saying anything about the label of the Wikidata item (difference between = and ~). That could not work in general, because WD has multiple labels (in different languages), while we cannot specify a language for comparison in the input file. Additionally, sometimes simple rules (like 'first-name last-name' vs. 'last-name, first-name' prevent any exact matching.

[jneubert]

170947386, phi58, "Christian von Hirschhausen (GND PRESENT BUT NOT LINKED)"

+ 170947386|Christian von Hirschhausen (GND PRESENT BUT NOT LINKED)|phi58
- 170947386|Q1082503

Like above, the output should, preferably in one line

• identify the input line
• give the ID of the found Wikidata item
• state that the link does not exist (and could be added)

[jneubert]

114008787, pwy2, "Charles Wyplosz (GND NOT PRESENT)"

+ 114008787|Charles Wyplosz (GND NOT PRESENT)|pwy2

Here I feel betrayed! By the + code, the output seems to indicate that a link coud be added - but not Wikidata item was identied by the source ID, which makes that impossible. (I'd consider adding Wikidata items out of scope.)

The output should

• identify the input line
• state that no Wikidata item has been found

[jneubert]

124825109, pxx999, "Dennis SNOWER (GND PRESENT BUT LINKED TO DIFFERENT TARGET)"

+ 124825109|Dennis SNOWER (GND PRESENT BUT LINKED TO DIFFERENT TARGET)|pxx999
- 124825109|Q1189225|psn9

The output should

• identify the input line
• give the ID of the found Wikidata item
• state (very clearly) that there exists a conflict between the existing target ID and the one in the input file
• give the existing target ID
• repeat the target ID from the input file

Perhaps a more general question is touched here: I don't think that already existing links in Wikidata should be overridden in any automatic fashion - conflicts should be stated by the tool and investigated and solved manually.

[jneubert]

123292182, psn9, "Leo H. Klaassen (GND PRESENT AND NOT LINKED BUT LINK TARGET EXISTS ALREADY)"

+ 123292182|Leo H. Klaassen (GND PRESENT AND NOT LINKED BUT LINK TARGET EXISTS ALREADY)|psn9
- 124825109|Q1189225|psn9
- 123292182|Q18817490

To me, the output for this case highly confusing, and I could only guess what it was intended to mean.

The output should

• identify the input line
• give the ID of the found Wikidata item
• state (very clearly) that the target ID is already linked to another Wikidata item (and therefore cannot be added)
• repeat the target ID from the input file
• give the ID of the Wikidata item where it is already used

[jneubert]

According to https://wdmapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/commands.html#check, lines starting with - seem to be continuation lines, but could also indicate that a link should removed (somehow opposite to the + code). That ambiguity of - should be avoided in any case.

[jneubert]

Just came accross a nice example re. the variety of Wikidata labels for a person: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q564905?uselang=en

[jneubert]

Output of v 0.0.9 (line "Charles Wyplosz (GND NOT PRESENT)" changed to non-existent GND):

# wdmapper check P227 P2428 -i /opt/repec-ras/var/ras/example2/map/gnd_ras_mapping.test.csv
#FORMAT: BEACON
#NAME: RePEc Short-ID
#DESCRIPTION: Mapping from GND IDs to RePEc Short-IDs
#PREFIX: http://d-nb.info/gnd/
#TARGET: https://authors.repec.org/pro/
#SOURCESET: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q36578
#TARGETSET: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q206316

~ 124825109|Q1189225|psn9
+ 170947386|Christian von Hirschhausen (GND PRESENT BUT NOT LINKED)|phi58
- 170947386|Q1082503
+ 999999999|Dummy (GND NOT PRESENT)|pxx99
+ 120068524|Joseph Stiglitz (GND PRESENT BUT LINKED DIFFERENTLY)|pxx999
- 120068524|Q18430|pst33
+ 123292182|Leo H. Klaassen (GND PRESENT BUT LINK TARGET DUPLICATE)|psn9
- 123292182|Q18817490
- 124825109|Q1189225|psn9