E59 Primitive Value in version 7.1.1

This class comprises values of primitive data types of programming languages or database management systems and data types composed of such values used as documentation elements, as well as their mathematical abstractions.

The instances of E59 Primitive Value and its subclasses are not considered elements of the universe of discourse the CIDOC CRM aims to define and analyze. Rather, they play the role of a symbolic interface between the scope of the model and the world of mathematical and computational manipulations and the symbolic objects they define and handle.

In particular, they comprise lexical forms encoded as strings or series of characters and symbols based on encoding schemes (characterised by being a limited subset of the respective mathematical abstractions) such as UNICODE and values of datatypes that can be encoded in a lexical form, including quantitative specifications of time-spans and geometry. They have in common that instances of E59 Primitive Value define themselves by virtue of their encoded value, regardless of the nature of their mathematical abstractions.

Therefore, in an implementation, instances of E59 Primitive should be represented directly in the encoded symbolic form supported by the respective platform, such as a character string or a formatted date. They must not be represented in an implementation indirectly via, another a universal resource identifier, which in turn is linked to the actual encoded symbolic form. In a concrete application, it is recommended that the primitive value system from a chosen implementation platform and/or data definition language be used to substitute for this class and its subclasses.