INCATools / INCATools/ontology-access-kit
`search` should create an empty file when no triples are found
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 198
- Forks
- 35
- Avg merge
- 3d 4h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 1
Description
We had a long-standing issue in a pipeline where we are using OAK search (`runoak -i wikidata: search -O rdf --output out.txt`), and everything kept working for months, while the pipeline was broken (for a reason unrelated to oak, the search terms where malformed). The problem was that the `search`, when it does not find anything, does not produce any output. So basically, the pipeline kept using the old output (`out.txt`), because it was never overwritten, which meant we only noticed the error months later when a new user tried running the pipeline.
Can I suggest that `search` creates an empty file when it "does to find anything" to prevent such errors in the future?
cc @sabrinatoro (FYI)
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the `runoak -i wikidata: search -O rdf --output out.txt` command with search terms that return no triples. Trace the `search` CLI entry point and its `--output` handling, then verify that a no-result run creates or truncates `out.txt` and does not retain stale content.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- cli
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100