Hello everybody,
Since I am working on the conversion from the dump files to the wdtk data model, I will have to take apart the "refs" section of the JSON representing the stored items.
Now a "refs"-section most likely looks like this: (Tried to format it for readability)
"refs": [ [ [ "value",248, "wikibase-entityid",{"entity-type":"item","numeric-id":15241312} ], [ "value",577, "time",{"time":"+00000002013-10-28T00:00:00Z","timezone":0,"before":0,"after":0,"precision":11,"calendarmodel":"http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1985727"} ] ] ]
So I figured out the following: The outer array groups all references. The second level array groups information about one reference (so if we had multiple references, we would also have multiple second-level arrays) and the inner arrays each group one specific information about one specific reference (as determined by the second level array they are nested in). Am I correct so far?
The integer following the "value"-string denotes what the following information is about. So if I read that the value is 577, I know that there must be a specification of time, don't I?
Is there any specific reason, why this is done in array form and not in a JSON object? (Since the "value"-key is always there one could know from its value, what other keys must be available.) If yes, why mention the type of information (e.g. "time") again? Am I overlooking something?
Thanks so far, -- Fredo Erxleben