Relativeabsolute

Relativeabsolute is a term used in computing and information management to describe a hybrid referencing scheme that combines relative referencing with absolute referencing. The concept is not standardized across disciplines, but it appears in discussions about resource addressing, coordinate systems, and data integration where both types of references are useful.

Definition and core idea

A relativeabsolute system attaches each item to two kinds of identifiers: an absolute anchor, which uniquely identifies the item in a global space, and a relative offset or path, which localizes the item with respect to a base context. Resolution involves selecting the appropriate reference depending on the operation: portable contexts favor relative references, while stable, global contexts favor absolute ones. In practice, this approach requires a defined base context that can be changed or defined at runtime, and logic to resolve to a unique absolute identifier when needed.

Applications

In file systems, resources can be addressed by a relative path from a known root or by an absolute path. In geographic information systems, locations may be described in absolute coordinates or relative to a reference point. In software, resources or identifiers can be specified with fully qualified (absolute) names or with shorter, context-dependent (relative) names. Robotics and simulation use similar ideas for coordinates or poses relative to a reference frame.

Benefits and challenges

Relativeabsolute offers portability and flexibility, allowing systems to operate with locally meaningful references while maintaining a route to global identifiers. Challenges include ambiguity in base contexts, complexity of resolution rules, and potential performance overhead during reference translations.

See also: absolute path, relative path, reference frame, coordinate system, URI.