How is the FAO represented?
The flat file version of the FAO and its definitions can be viewed here. The top of the file shows the last revision date. The file is created with OBO-Edit v. 1.101, and the file format is explained here. Every term is unique and has a unique identifier, the FAO_id, with the syntax ‘FAO:nnnnnnn’, where nnnnnnn is a zero-padded integer of seven digits. If users and developers agree that a term is defunct, then it is removed from its place in the ontology and made a child of the meta term “obsolete;” its definition is preserved. When two terms are merged, e.g., term A and term B are merged as term A, then the FAO_id of term B is made a secondary FAO_id. When a term is split, each new term gets a new FAO_id and the original FAO_id is a secondary FAO_id to each. A freely available Java application, OBO-Edit, has been developed to facilitate viewing and editing ontologies. The FAO ontology and definitions files may be downloaded from the Open Biomedical Ontologies site for viewing using OB
