Re: Pondering RDF Path

On Fri, Sep 05, 2003 at 10:23:28AM +0100, Sean B. Palmer wrote:
> Started out as:-
> 
> { ?x a foaf:Person; foaf:name "Sean B. Palmer";
>    foaf:knows ?y . ?y a foaf:Person; foaf:mbox ?z }
> 
> But the difference is that the latter is really a list of triples:-
> 
> ?x rdf:type foaf:Person .
> ?x foaf:name "Sean B. Palmer" .
> ?x foaf:knows ?y .
> ?y rdf:type foaf:Person .
> ?y foaf:mbox ?z .
> 
> And the former is a mixture of selectors, filters, and paths:-
> 
> Select: *
> Test: rdf:type/foaf:Person
> Test: foaf:name/"Sean B. Palmer"
> Path: foaf:knows/*
> Test: rdf:type/foaf:Person
> Path: foaf:mbox/*
> 
> With Query, you can start matching any of the triples in any order,
> whereas with the path you have to do all of the pieces in order. So
> Path is more straightforward in that respect.

I dont think thats true, you can evalute a path in order should you wish
to. I dont think the path/query distinction is that great, fundamentally
all you have a graph made of triples, a path, is just another subgraph.

- Steve