Merge overview

The merge tools find duplicate entities and consolidate them, combining their data and updating all references.

Workflow

1. Find duplicates - Scan RDF files to find entities sharing identifiers
2. Group entities - Prepare for parallel processing
3. Execute merge - Consolidate entities with provenance tracking
4. Track history - Reconstruct what was merged (optional)

Find duplicates:

uv run python -m oc_meta.run.find.duplicated_entities /data/rdf duplicates.csv br

Group for parallel processing:

uv run python -m oc_meta.run.merge.group_entities duplicates.csv groups/ meta_config.yaml

Merge:

uv run python -m oc_meta.run.merge.entities groups/ meta_config.yaml https://w3id.org/oc/meta/prov/pa/1

Optional - see what was merged:

uv run python -m oc_meta.run.find.merged_entities -c meta_config.yaml -o merged.csv --entity-type br

Available tools

Tool	Purpose
Find duplicates	Scan RDF files for duplicate identifiers and entities
Group entities	Prepare duplicates for parallel merging
Merge entities	Execute merge operations
Verify merge	Check merge results and generate fix queries
Compact CSV	Extract completed merges into a single file
Merge history	Reconstruct merge history from provenance

What happens during merge

When entity B is merged into entity A:

1. Identifiers from B are added to A
2. Metadata from B fills gaps in A (titles, dates, etc.)
3. Relationships pointing to B are redirected to A
4. Author/editor chains from A are kept (B’s chains are discarded)
5. Provenance records the merge operation
6. Entity B is marked as merged and invalidated

The surviving entity (A) becomes the canonical representation. The merged entity (B) is preserved in provenance for historical queries but is no longer active.