RE: Namespaces -- Out of scope of OWL?

Hello,

One goal behind the design of a new textual syntax was to provide a parsable
syntax. This is why we call the new syntax "functional-style syntax", and
not "abstract syntax": the new syntax is quite concrete. 

For this, namespaces seem to be really important; without them, any file
would be just horribly difficult to read or edit. Therefore, we simply
imported the XML style of defining and expanding namespaces. We did not
believe that this would be difficult to implement: if you see an URI of the
form "a:b", just replace "a" with the declared namespace. I did not quite
understand your point with "amp"; could you please elaborate?

Sincerely yours,

	Boris

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-owl-dev-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-dev-request@w3.org]
> On Behalf Of Turner, David
> Sent: 19 April 2007 10:02
> To: public-owl-dev@w3.org
> Subject: Namespaces -- Out of scope of OWL?
> 
> 
> The OWL/1.0 abstract syntax is essentially silent on the subject of
> QNames, namespaces and how to abbreviate URIs; I imagine this is because
> they're a pretty thorny issue that's a bit implementation-specific.
> 
> The OWL/1.1 spec *does* have QNames etc, and includes namespace
> declarations in the abstract syntax. I think it would be safer to remove
> this and follow the OWL/1.0 path of leaving this up to implementors. The
> treatment of names in OWL/1.1 is essentially exactly that of OWL/1.0
> except that we use IRIs instead of URIs (as noted in OWL-concepts).
> 
> For example, if a user were to define 'amp' as a namespace prefix, they
> may be surprised by the effects this has on certain bits of the XML
> serialisation of their ontology.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Dave Turner  Cube T400, HP Labs Bristol, Filton Road, Bristol BS34 8QZ
> davidt@hp.com          +44 117 3129104 (Work) +44 7962 811627 (Mobile)
> 
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Received on Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:12:10 UTC