Writing URIs for the Common Impact Data Standard

[mrgarth]

URI Pattern for the Common Impact Data Standard

The recommended pattern for URIs is:

https:// [domain root] / [nodetype] / [unique identifier for that node]

For example, for an organization whose domain root is www.example.org, the URI (the @id value) for a cids:Address node could be

https://www.example.org/Address/ExampleHQaddress

And for a cids:Indicator:

https://www.example.org/Indicator/BA3458

It is a design choice for the organization and/or software creating the URIs to use identifiers that are either human-readable, or unique alphanumeric values.
Either way, it's important to also follow general best practices for linked data URIs.

Best Practices for Linked Data URIs

For Linked Data URIs, the set of allowed characters adheres to the general URI syntax defined in RFC 3986.
This includes:

Unreserved characters: (i.e., “allowed” characters)

• Uppercase and lowercase letters (A-Z, a-z)
• Decimal digits (0-9)
• Hyphen (-), period (.), underscore (_), and tilde (~)

Reserved characters: (i.e. “not allowed except for their intended special purpose”)
These characters have a specific meaning within the URI syntax and are used as delimiters. They include:

• General delimiters: Colon (:), slash (/), question mark (?), hash (#), left square bracket ([), right square bracket (]), and at sign (@)
• Sub-delimiters: Exclamation mark (!), dollar sign ($), ampersand (&), apostrophe ('), left parenthesis ((), right parenthesis ()), asterisk (*), plus sign (+), comma (,), semicolon (;), and equals sign (=)

Percent-encoded characters:
Accented letters, diacritical marks, and spaces are generally discouraged in Linked Data URIs and should be percent-encoded if necessary. This involves representing the character as a percent sign (%) followed by its two-digit hexadecimal representation. For example, a space character would be encoded as %20.