Re: Urgent: Issue with RIF-Core EBNF Grammar?

Axel,

I do not think that changing Core at this point is a good idea (to say the 
least :-)

And, hopefully, we do not have to, anyway: if you need Core rules combined 
with class membership facts, you can import them (facts), e.g. from an OWL 
ontology. Does not that solve your issue?

</chair>As you now, I've always been of the opinion that facts (data and 
data models) are orthogonal to rules, and that their representations 
should, therefore, be kept separate; and, then, the way to use the rules 
is to combine them with facts<chair>

One reason why we did not want class membership formulas in Core rules 
heads is because allowing rules, in PRD, that could morph individuals 
without restriction (by asserting them as members of new classes) would 
have been problematic for some of the main PR engines. As a consequence, 
class membership assertions are allowed, in RIF PRD, only when a new 
individual is created: I do not know if we could have tried and designed a 
restriction to the same effect for the use of class membership formulas in 
Core rules heads. But Dave and the Core stakeholders were not very keen on 
class membership anyway, if I remember correctly.

Cheers,

Christian

IBM
9 rue de Verdun
94253 - Gentilly cedex - FRANCE
Tel. +33 1 49 08 35 00
Fax +33 1 49 08 35 10




From:
Axel Polleres <axel.polleres@deri.org>
To:
RIF <public-rif-wg@w3.org>
Date:
11/05/2010 18:15
Subject:
Urgent: Issue with RIF-Core EBNF Grammar?
Sent by:
public-rif-wg-request@w3.org



Hi folks, 

We are working on a parser with some students and I am afraid my student 
found something awkward in the RIF Core grammar, see mail below.

Indeed, I think he poked into a quite weird issue: 
It doesn't make sense to allow class membership terms in rule bodies, if 
they can't appear at all in *any* facts.
The current grammar and the restrictions in Section 2.3 though only allows 
uniterms and frames as facts.


To repair this

1) We'd need to change in Section 2.3 Formulas of RIF-Core:

 * Equality terms and class membership terms cannot occur in rule 
conclusions -- they are allowed only in rule premises.
-->
 * Equality terms cannot occur in rule conclusions -- they are allowed 
only in rule premises.
 * Class membership terms can only occur in rule premises or as ground 
facts.

2) a proposal to fix the grammar in Section 2.6 would  be:

In the Rule Language grammar:

  CLAUSE         ::= Implies | ATOMIC
 -->
  CLAUSE         ::= Implies | ATOMIC | GROUNDTERM '#' GROUNDTERM



sorry for spotting this now only, but I am afraid this is severe.
the fix is not very problematic, though.

Axel 




Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Obermeier, Philipp" <philipp.obermeier@deri.org>
> Date: 11 May 2010 16:26:50 GMT+01:00
> To: "Polleres, Axel" <axel.polleres@deri.org>
> Cc: "Marco Marano" <marcomarano83@gmail.com>
> Subject: RIF-Core: EBNF, equality/memberhip facts
> 
> Hi Axel,
> 
> I found a minor error in the EBNF grammar [1] for RIF-Core (Altough,
> this grammar is informative due to the lack of well-formedness checks,
> it is also defined as strict superset of RIF-Core.).  Within this
> grammar you cannot derive Equality or Membership (ground) facts since
> the ATOMIC rule's rhs is restricted to atomic formulas excluding
> Equality/Membership formulas. Apparently, this restriction is well
> justified since ATOMIC may appear in rule heads (cf. IMPLIES rule's
> rhs), for which Core forbids Equality and Membership formulas. In
> conclusion, an introduction of a new ATOMIC_FACTS grammar rule extending
> ATOMIC by Membership/Equality  would solve this issue w/o breaking the
> restriction for atoms in rule heads.
> 
> Best
> Philipp
> 
> [1]
> 
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/Core#EBNF_Grammar_for_the_Presentation_Syntax_of_RIF-Core

> 
> --
> Philipp Obermeier
> Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, 
Galway
> email: philipp.obermeier@deri.org





Sauf indication contraire ci-dessus:/ Unless stated otherwise above:
Compagnie IBM France
Siege Social : 17 avenue de l'Europe, 92275 Bois-Colombes Cedex
RCS Nanterre 552 118 465
Forme Sociale : S.A.S.
Capital Social : 611.451.766,20 ?
SIREN/SIRET : 552 118 465 03644