Add name and avatar as convenience methods

[melvincarvalho]

It would be nice to return name and avatar in convenience methods from the SolidProfile

Currently I use code like:

      var FOAF  = $rdf.Namespace("http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/");
      var kb = parsedProfile.parsedGraph;
      var name = kb.any($rdf.sym(userURI), FOAF('name'));
      var avatar = kb.any($rdf.sym(userURI), FOAF('depiction')) 
                || kb.any($rdf.sym(userURI), FOAF('img'));

[dan-f]

@melvincarvalho - I was just speaking to @deiu regarding this exact issue the other day.

I agree with your request. I've been experiencing this $rdf.any(...) boiler plate as a bit of a leaky abstraction. That is, if I want to work with basic solid data, I don't think that I should have to know the nitty-gritty details of rdflib or even RDF (perhaps this could be controversial). Since the solid spec defines a profile data schema, the client library can abstract away the queries against that profile.

E.g. I can imagine two styles:

solidProfile.getAvatar() // returns url to avatar
solidProfile.getName() // returns name

vs.

// SolidProfile.prototype.get takes a... rdflib symbol? :/
solidProfile.get(solid.vocab.foaf('img')) // returns url to avatar
solidProfile.get(solid.vocab.foaf('name')) // returns name

I prefer the second because I don't love the idea of adding a getter method for every single profile field; it feels a bit more future proof to me. I'm also curious as to any designs you had in mind.

Tagging @dmitrizagidulin as he implemented the profile module.

[deiu]

I prefer the 2nd one as well.

I wonder to what extent we need to support both solidProfile.get() and solidProfile.getAll(). The later one can be useful to return multiple values -- e.g. phone numbers or emails.

[dmitrizagidulin]

Implemented in PR #101. See the README for details, but basically it exposes:

• profile.name
• profile.picture
• profile.find(predicate)
• profile.findAll(predicate)

[dmitrizagidulin]

Implemented. closing.