Question Configuration Reference

MaRDMO extracts interview answers from RDMO by reading each registered question's configuration from <submodule>/data/questions.json and routing the value through a rule function determined by five boolean flags. This page documents the configuration fields and the complete flag-to-rule mapping.

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Configuration fields

Each question entry inside questions.json has the following fields:

Field	Required	Description
uri	yes	RDMO attribute URI fragment (without the base URI https://rdmo.mardi4nfdi.de/terms/)
key1	yes	Top-level key in the answers dict — the entity class name (e.g. "field", "model")
key2	yes	Second-level key — the specific question name within the entity (e.g. "ID", "Name")
key3	no	Optional third-level key for deeply nested structures
set_prefix	no	true when the question belongs to a nested (collection) question set — the entity instance index is inserted into the path
set_index	no	true when the question belongs to a question set — the question set instance index is inserted into the path
collection_index	no	true when the question is a collection (multiple answers) — the answer index is appended to the path
external_id	no	true to extract the entity reference stored for this question as {ID, Name, Description} or a raw external ID
option_text	no	true to extract both the selected option's URI and the entered text as a [option_uri, text] pair — used when a question captures both a relation type (option) and a related entity name (text)

Omitted boolean fields default to false.

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Flag combinations and resulting paths

The five boolean flags (set_prefix, set_index, collection_index, external_id, option_text) are read from the question config at runtime and used to look up the correct extraction rule in flag_dict (defined in constants.py).

The entry type column describes what is stored at the resulting path:

• raw — value.option_uri if an option was selected, otherwise value.text
• list — a [option_uri, text] pair from basic_list(value)
• dict — an entity reference dict {ID, Name, Description} from basic_dict(value)
• ext_id — value.external_id

Raw entries

set_prefix	set_index	coll_index	ext_id	opt_text	Rule	Resulting path
✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	0	[key1, key2]
✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	1	[key1, prefix_idx, key2]
✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	2	[key1, set_index, key2]
✗	✗	✓	✗	✗	10	[key1, key2, coll_index]
✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	3	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, set_index] (+ key3)
✗	✓	✓	✗	✗	4	[key1, set_index, key2, coll_index] (+ key3)
✓	✗	✓	✗	✗	5	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, coll_index]
✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	19	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, set_index, coll_index]

External ID entries

set_prefix	set_index	coll_index	ext_id	opt_text	Rule	Resulting path
✗	✓	✗	✓	✗	12	[key1, set_index, key2]

Dict entries ({ID, Name, Description})

set_prefix	set_index	coll_index	ext_id	opt_text	Rule	Resulting path
✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	9	[key1]
✗	✗	✓	✓	✗	11	[key1, key2, coll_index]
✓	✓	✗	✓	✗	13	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, set_index] (+ key3)
✓	✗	✓	✓	✗	14	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, coll_index]
✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	15	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, set_index, coll_index]

List entries ([option_uri, text])

set_prefix	set_index	coll_index	ext_id	opt_text	Rule	Resulting path
✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	7	[key1, prefix_idx, key2]
✗	✓	✗	✗	✓	8	[key1, set_index, key2]
✓	✓	✗	✗	✓	16	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, set_index] (+ key3)
✓	✗	✓	✗	✓	17	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, coll_index]
✗	✓	✓	✗	✓	18	[key1, set_index, key2, coll_index] (+ key3)
✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	6	[key1, prefix_idx, key2, set_index, coll_index]