Re: on property paths in SHACL

There are still several problems:

1/ Although the intent of "in the given order" is somewhat clear, it doesn't
really say what is needed, which is something along the lines that the first
applicable rule wins.  It would be better to use "otherwise" for each rule.
(Except that many or all otherwises are not allowed, but this is only
forbidden in a cryptic note.)   It would be much better to say all this
explicitly at each rule, like "If p is a blank node that is the subject of
exactly one triple with predicate rdf:first and one triple with predicate
rdf:rest and no other triples, then ..." and "If p is a blank node that is the
subject of exactly one triple with predicate sh:inversePath and no other
triples, then ...".)

2/ The definition of RDF list is inadequate as it allows for circular lists.
As well, the order of the members of a list is not defined.

3/ The rules allow for something that has multiple values for rdf:first and
one value for sh:alternativePath.  It would be better to make this case
illegal.  Similarly for other places that say "exactly one value for".
(Except that this is illegal from the cryptic note.  See above.)

The ,, needs to be remove from the first "Note" sentence.  The second "Note"
sentence should not be a note as it is part of the core of path processing.
The first clause should be rolled into the definition of a SHACL property
path, like "A *SHACL property path" p is an IRI or blank node that satisfies
the antecedent of one of the following rules:"  The second clause should be
made more explicit.  The third clause should be distributed over the various
rules.


peter




On 11/21/2016 02:08 AM, Dimitris Kontokostas wrote:
> Dear Peter,
> 
> Thank you for your feedback on property paths.
> Can you please check if you have further comments on this section?
> We tried to also cover other comments you had on the equivalency of property paths
> 
> http://w3c.github.io/data-shapes/shacl/#path-syntax
> 
> Best regards,
> Dimitris
> 
> On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 5:25 PM, Peter F. Patel-Schneider
> <pfpschneider@gmail.com <mailto:pfpschneider@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Following up one of the recent responses to my comments on Shapes Constraint
>     Language (SHACL) lead me to look at how property paths work in Shapes
>     Constraint
>     Language (SHACL), W3C Editor's Draft 22 September 2016.
> 
> 
>     The definition of property paths includes:
>     "A valid SHACL property path p is represented by an IRI or a blank node that
>     can be correctly traversed recursively using the following rules."
> 
>     The use of "recursively" is incorrect here.  There is no need to use a
>     recursive process here at all.  The use of "traversed" is incorrect here.
>     There is no need to traverse anything here at all.
> 
>     A much better wording is
>     "A valid SHACL property path p is represented by an IRI or a blank node that
>     satisfies the following conditions."
> 
>     It is possible for a node to both be a valid property path and an invalid
>     property path, which does not seem to make any sense.
> 
>     It is possible for a non-invalid property path to satisfy both rule 4 and
>     one of the other rules. What happens then?
> 
>     The definition of property paths contains a use-mention error.  A property
>     path is represented by a node but then the path itself is treated as if it
>     were a node in an RDF graph.
> 
>     As a not-invalid property path cannot have multiple outgoing edges it is
>     hard to add extra information to property paths.
> 
>     The SPARQL path resulting from rule 2 is not defined.  As well, "value of
>     path" is not defined.   It appears that the intent is that p itself is an
>     RDF list, but that would make p be an invalid SHACL property path.
> 
>     The entire section needs to be completely rewritten.
> 
> 
> 
>     Peter F. Patel-Schneider
>     Nuance Communications
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dimitris Kontokostas
> Department of Computer Science, University of Leipzig & DBpedia Association
> Projects: http://dbpedia.org, http://rdfunit.aksw.org, http://aligned-project.eu
> Homepage: http://aksw.org/DimitrisKontokostas
> Research Group: AKSW/KILT http://aksw.org/Groups/KILT
>

Received on Monday, 21 November 2016 16:50:57 UTC