Re: RDF/XML and named graphs

Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
> I was thinking less of whether it would be considered legal by parsers, 
> but whether the semantics would be corrupted.
> Initially you have triples segregated into graphs, but for an old parser 
> you have a single graph and some extra triples.


> Could there be nasty misunderstandings?

I think there could be, and one would need to be careful.


In RDF as in the recommendations, it is fairly hard to have different 
semantic force. This can be achieved by using separate documents. For 
example, the RDF Test Cases, are described with a Manifest file (which 
is in RDF), and is intended to be read as an assertion of fact, or 
intent, or even as a performative "we hereby bless the following tests" 
by the RDF Core WG, and the W3C. The data files for the tests appear in 
a similar way on the Web server, and are intended to be read as 
examples, without any intent of their meaning being taken seriously.

If the author of the triples means all of them: i.e. they are all true 
in the author's world view, then the motive for separating them into 
different graphs maybe to make them easier to read or process - so for 
example metadata may be best kept separate from data or metametadata.
But if someone else reads it all at a single level, it's not that 
anything is false ....


Jeremy

Received on Thursday, 13 December 2007 19:09:18 UTC