Re: firts and rdf:rest as functional property

Hi Michael

Sorry for the late replay.

Michael Schneider said the following on 02/18/2009 08:49 PM:
> ...
> But why does anybody want semantic constraints for lists at all? One
> certainly does not want to reason about duplicate rdf:first occurrences,
> right? What one probably rather wants is to make sure that lists are
> structurally ok. And, I guess, for all realistic scenarios, a syntax checker
> will simply do the job.
>   
The main reason I see that if rdf:rest is a functional property a graph
can be decomposed without loss into much smaller components. If rdf:rest
and rdf:first are not functional a list could typically not be be
splitted into different rdf molecules[1]. Splitting graphs into small
components is essential for applications like diff, sync[2] and
versioning[3].

Cheers,
reto


1. http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/get/a/publication/178.pdf
2. http://semanticweb.deit.univpm.it/papers/RDFSyncISWC2007.pdf
3. http://gvs.hpl.hp.com/