- From: Jeremy Gray <jeremy@jeremygray.ca>
- Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 07:36:20 -0700
- To: <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
(This may end up as a double-post, so if it does, please disregard whichever version appears second) Setting aside for the moment the whole issue of namespace URIs and their potential relation to RDF Schema documents and the network resolution thereof I have a question for RDF application implementers out there regarding their use of Resource identifiers in the form of XML Names vs. concatenated URIs: Since it is obvious that the working group(s) responsible for RDF for one reason or another (i.e. current charter) are not in a position to properly address RDF's current mangled interpretation of Namespaces in XML and other identifier-related issues such as: - if RDF/XML requires prefixes before each attribute, it is simply not Namespaces in XML -compliant XML - the suggested XML Names -> URI concatenation process produces collisions - the suggested URI -> XML Names splitting method is so flawed as to not be responsibly implementable (i.e. you can't generate valid LocalParts by splitting on non-Name characters, but can if splitting on non-NCName characters. However, using the latter method produces differently invalid results, e.g. if splitting urn:NewsML:afp.com:20000811:010607144425.x6pxrl6k:1) Without getting into a huge discussion about each of the example bullets above (unless you have specific comments regarding their effect on your implementation) and without starting yet another discussion about how simple it would be to fix these issues and how many benefits could be reaped from their correction if only an RDF 1.1 or some such could be created that natively includes the concept of namespaces, I'd like to hear how implementers have dealt with these issues in light of the fact that the Working Group(s) can't/won't. Are you fully supporting Namespaces in XML in your serialization? Internally? Are you following the WG-recommended concatenation and splitting processes? If not, what are you doing instead? My company, for example, intends to produce behaviour indicative of full and correct interpretation of the Namespaces in XML specification so that behaviour both inside and outside of our system is consistent. It may not be strict RDF, but it has a better chance of producing correct results. Since Namespaces exist within our RDF system (once again, NOT for schema identification or resolution, just for identifiers), and since we do expect information to flow to and from other systems operating in terms of the naive RDF 1.0 + issue tracking interpretation, we may create something analogous to the concatenation/stripping process but which is based on a list of known namespaces on which splitting/merging can occur when desired instead of the current half-baked process. Since those external applications will be creating collisions and improperly splitting URIs anyway, we don't honestly expect 100% correct integrated behaviour in any case, but will try to integrate with them as best as we can. How are you addressing Namespaces in XML -related issues in and around RDF? Thanks now for your time and in advance for your comments. Jeremy Gray
Received on Thursday, 6 June 2002 10:36:51 UTC