Fuzzy about Functional Property from Roger L. Costello on 2003-02-26 (public-webont-comments@w3.org from February 2003)

From: Roger L. Costello <costello@mitre.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 12:02:43 -0500
To: public-webont-comments@w3.org
CC: "Costello,Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
Message-ID: <3E5CF333.2240DFC0@mitre.org>

Hi Folks,

I am a bit confused about what a functional property is.  Let me give an
example:

Let the property be: lengthOf
  - it maps a River to a Distance

Suppose that one instance document asserts this:

    The Yangtze has a lengthOf 6300 kilometers.

A second instance document then asserts this:

    The Yangtze has a lengthOf 3937.5 miles.

If lengthOf has been declared "functional" then we can infer that:

    6300 kilometers = 3937.5 miles.

Is the purpose of functional to enable inferences like this?  /Roger

Received on Wednesday, 26 February 2003 12:02:50 UTC