RE: Approaching an XML syntax for RIF

For an Interchange Format, fully striped syntax carries too much
baggage that can be easily reconstructed by a 'stripe expander'.

In http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/CORE/Conditions/Positive

the stripe-skipped Example 2 (XSDizing $49 is a different issue)

  <And>
    <Exists>
      <Var>Buyer</Var>
      <Atom>
        <Con>purchase</Con>
        <Var>Buyer</Var>
        <Var>Seller</Var>
        <Expr>
          <Con>book</Con>
          <Var>Author</Var>
          <Con>LeRif</Con>
        </Expr>
        <Con>$49</Con>
      </Atom>
    </Exists>
    <Equal>
      <Var>Seller</Var>
      <Var>Author</Var>
    </Equal>
  </And>

can be easily expanded, on demand, to a fully striped

  <And>
    <formula>
      <Exists>
        <declare><Var>Buyer</Var></declare>
        <formula>
          <Atom>
            <op><Con>purchase</Con></op>
            <arg index="1"><Var>Buyer</Var></arg>
            <arg index="2"><Var>Seller</Var></arg>
            <arg index="3">
              <Expr>
                <op><Con>book</Con></op>
                <arg index="1"><Var>Author</Var></arg>
                <arg index="2"><Con>LeRif</Con></arg>
              </Expr>
            </arg>
            <arg index="4"><Con>$49</Con></arg>
          </Atom>
        </formula>
      </Exists>
    </formula>
    <formula>
      <Equal>
        <lhs><Var>Seller</Var></lhs>
        <rhs><Var>Author</Var></rhs>
      </Equal>
    </formula>
  </And>
 
-- Harold


-----Original Message-----
From: public-rif-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-rif-wg-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Christian de Sainte Marie
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:19 AM
To: Sandro Hawke
Cc: public-rif-wg@w3.org
Subject: Re: Approaching an XML syntax for RIF


Sandro Hawke wrote:
> 
> The idea of stripe-skipping is to say that we can omit certain
> XML elements -- skipping directly to their child elements -- because
> they carry only redundant information.

What is the benefit of stripe-skipping?

I agree with Dave: this seems to put forward and backward compatibility,

whereas the whole idea is to make extending dialects in a 
forward/backward compatible way easy.

In addition, it makes deriving the XML syntax from the abstract one more

complex.

Christian

Received on Tuesday, 30 January 2007 12:59:52 UTC