NAME

Lingua::Thesaurus::Term - parent class for thesaurus terms

SYNOPSIS

  my $term = $thesaurus->fetch_term($term_string);

  # methods for specific relations
  my $scope_note = $term->SN;
  my @synonyms   = $term->UF;

  # exploring several relations at once
  foreach my $pair ($term->related(qw/NT RT/)) {
    my ($rel_type, $item) = @$pair;
    printf "  %s(%s) = %s\n", $rel_type->description, $rel_type->rel_id, $item;
  }

  # transitive search
  foreach my $quadruple ($term->transitively_related(qw/NT/)) {
    my ($rel_type, $related_term, $through_term, $level) = @$quadruple;
    printf "  %s($level): %s (through %s)\n", 
       $rel_type->rel_id,
       $level,
       $related_term->string,
       $through_term->string;
  }

DESCRIPTION

Objects of this class encapsulate terms in a thesaurus. They possess methods for navigating through relations, reaching other terms or external data.

CONSTRUCTOR

new

  my $term = Lingua::Thesaurus::Term->new(
    storage => $storage, # an object playing role Lingua::Thesaurus::Storage
    id      => $id,      # unique id for this term
    string  => $string,  # the actual term string
    origin  => $origin,  # an identifier for the file where this term was found
  );

Creates a new term object; not likely to be called from client code, because such objects are created automatically from the thesaurus through "search_terms" in Lingua::Thesaurus and "fetch_term" in Lingua::Thesaurus methods.

ATTRIBUTES

storage

Reference to the storage object from which this term was issued.

id

unique storage id for the term

string

the term itself

origin

tagname of the dumpfile where this term was found

METHODS

related

  my @pairs = $term->related(@relation_ids);

Returns a list of items related to the current term, through one or several @relation_ids. Each returned item is a pair, where the first element is an instance of Lingua::Thesaurus::RelType, and the second element is either a plain string (when the relation type is "external"), or another term (when the relation type is "internal").

NT, BT, etc.

  my @narrower_terms = $term->NT;
  my $broader_term   = $term->BT;
  ...

Specific navigation methods, such as NT, BT, etc., depend on the relation types declared in the thesaurus; once those relations are known, a subclass of Lingua::Thesaurus::Term is automatically created, with the appropriate additional methods.

Internally these methods are implemented of course by calling the "related" method described above; but instead or returning a list of pairs, they just return related items (since the relation type is explicitly requested in the method call, it would be useless to return it again as a result). The result is either a list or a single related item, depending on the calling context.

transitively_related

  my @quadruples = $term->transitively_related(@relation_ids);

Returns a list of items directly or indirectly related to the current term, through one or several @relation_ids. Each returned item is a quadruple, where the first two elements are as in the ""related" method, and the two remaining elements are

• the last intermediate term through wich this relation was reached

• the level of transitive steps

cpanm Lingua::Thesaurus

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Lingua::Thesaurus