use_zone_as_evidence Attribute

// Introduced in Semaphore version 3.5 //

If the rule fires then the entire containing zone(s) is (are) used as evidence rather than the (possibly) disjoint set of children’s evidence which creates the firing.

Generally this behaviour is wanted when information is being extracted - if the evidence is not being used further up the tree then this attribute is of little use.

Applies to

• SENTENCE
• PARAGRAPH
• SEQUENCE

From Semaphore 4.0 is inheritable so may be used on all rules.

However the opportunity of a major version change has been taken to change the default behaviour of sentence and paragraph so that they default to this attribute being on. There are a few cases where this change in default behaviour will change existing rules but the convenience of rarely having to specify this attribute was felt to be more beneficial.

Values

• “1” - Entire zone used as evidence
• “0” - default

Example

The following:

<all extract="1" >
    <phrase data="Fred Flintstone"/>
    <sentence extract_name="Fred Flinstone arrests" use_zone_as_evidence="0" >
        <any data="Fred Flintstone" />                    
        <text data="arrested" stem="1"/>
    </sentence>
</all>

Applied to a document fragment:

Mr Fred Flintstone was married today to Ms Wilma Slaghoople in Bedrock.
Unfortunately for the future well being of this couple Fred was arrested 
during the wedding breakfast for attempted grievous bodily harm.

Would return the following:

...
<META NAME="Fred Flintstone Arrests" VALUE="Fred" score="1.00" />
<META NAME="Fred Flintstone Arrests" VALUE="arrested" score="1.00" />
...

Without the use of this attribute the entire sentence would be returned (in older versions the attribute was required to be on for the sentence rule to have its evidence being the entire sentence)

...
<META NAME="Fred Flintstone Arrests" VALUE="Unfortunately for the future well being of this couple Fred was arrested during the wedding 
breakfast for attempted grievous bodily harm" score="1.00"/>
...

See also

• TEMPLATE
• REGEX