Re: Datayped tagged literals: a case for option 4 vs option 2d

On 26 Sep 2011, at 09:50, Antoine Zimmermann wrote:
> - Syntactically, xxx@lll would simply be a shortcut for the abstract syntax "xxx@lll"^^rdf:LangString.

No. In rdf:PlainLiteral, the "xxx@lll"^^rdf:PlainLiteral form is *forbidden* except in environments that don't support language tags. This restriction exists for very good reasons that I won't reiterate here. The "xxx@lll"^^rdf:LangString form would have to remain forbidden for the same reasons.

> For instance, time zone, year, hour, date in xsd:datetimeStamp are obtained by parsing the lexical form. Same for exponent in xsd:float, same for any component of any typed literals. Why should it be different for lang tagged strings?

2.5 is a decimal number and that 2011-09-26 is a date. These things have been enshrined in a gazillion specifications and programming languages and libraries for decades.

No programming language knows that "foo@en" is supposedly a string tagged as English.

> In terms of pure specs, I think option 4 is much more elegant and easy. However, I understand that there are practical issues with option 4

You understate the issues.

Every existing application that uses the Literal.getLexicalForm() call of some API to get at the xxx part of xxx@lll would have to be changed, because the lexical form of xxx@lll is now xxx@lll.

That's a complete non-starter.

Best,
Richard

Received on Monday, 26 September 2011 09:28:58 UTC