Re: LANG: Moving issues 5.6 and 5.14 forward

From: Jeff Heflin <heflin@cse.lehigh.edu>
Subject: Re: LANG: Moving issues 5.6 and 5.14 forward
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 15:23:09 -0400

> Jim Hendler wrote:
> > 
> > this make sense to me, but I would like to point out that it is
> > actually illegal RDF.  The problem is that the RDF syntax requires a
> > root element of <RDF:rdf>  - further, at the current time, the
> > RDF:rdf cannot can contain any attributes other than those of XML.
> > There has been some discussion of possible ways to do something about
> > this at the RDF level, but nothing definite.
> >   -JH
> > 
> 
> Actually, I just checked RDFM&S, and this is perfectly legal. RDF was
> designed so you could embed it in other XML documents. I quote from
> section 2.2.1 of [1]:
> 
> "The RDF element is a simple wrapper that marks the boundaries in an XML
> document between which the content is explicitly intended to be mappable
> into an RDF data model instance. The RDF element is optional if the
> content can be known to be RDF from the application context."
> 
> Therefore, we can insert the RDF anywhere in another XML document.
> Furthermore, if the application can determine that some content is RDF,
> we don't even need to use the RDF tag. However, for the benefit of
> plain-old-RDF parsers, I recommend that we keep it.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-rdf-syntax-19990222/

I also checked the new RDF syntax document and it allows RDF embedding
within other XML elements.  In fact, according to the new RDF syntax
document, it should be possible to have something like 


<owl:Ontology xmlns="...">
   <!-- multiple imports are allowed in separate elements -->
   <owl:imports ontology="..." />
   <owl:imports ontology="..." />
   ...
   <owl:priorVersion ontology="..." />
   <owl:backCompatWith ontology="..." />

   <!-- ontology content goes here -->
   ...

</owl:Ontology>

I don't know where Jim's information came from.

The only restriction would be that the non-RDF stuff comes before the RDF
stuff, although it may even be possible to finesse that.

peter

Received on Tuesday, 24 September 2002 15:41:01 UTC