Re: web of data: how to include forms?

Thank you for your comments.

Let's take an example to clarify.
You (or a program) wants information about removing the engine from a car.
If you are a human, you connect to the documentation server and you discover, 
for instance choosing among a hierarchy of skos-concepts, that you have to 
access the following URL:
ex:engine_removal
If you are a program, let's say that you already know that you have to access 
this URL.
You specify in the accept http header that you want to receive RDF data.

Let's say now that the way of removing the engine depends on the model of the 
car and on the type of engine. The documentation application must know these 
characteristics of your car in order to return the information that you actually 
need. (It would not make sense to return information about all the cars, not 
only because it would be a waste of bandwidth, but also because you would not be 
able to choose the pieces that are relevant to you). Hence the idea of returning 
to the client a "rdf-form", something such as:
<rdf:Description rdf:about"ex:engine_removal">
	<form:hasForm>
		<form:Form>
			<form:param rdf:resource="ex:model"/>
			<form:param rdf:resource="ex:engine_type"/>
		</form:Form>
	</form:hasForm>
</rdf:Description >

If the client program knows the conventions of the "form vocabulary", it can 
construct the following URL and send a get to it:
ex:engine_removal?ex:model=modelvalue&ex:engine_type=enginetypevalue
(url encoding needed here)

The important point: the client program knows the meaning of the params of the form.

For the model value and engine value returned by the user, the documentation 
application will maybe notice that the removal of the engine depends also on the 
type of gearbox. In this case, it will return another form asking for it:
<rdf:Description 
rdf:about"ex:engine_removal?ex:model=modelvalue&ex:engine_type=enginetypevalue">
	<form:hasForm>
		...
Note that REST principles are respected here.

Remark: a car has a URI (its "Vehicle Identification Number" or "VIN"). With 
this value, we can get at one time all (or most) of the technical 
characteristics of a car (they are stored in a database). We would use it in a 
real application.

Would it be possible to use SPARQL in the process described here?

Best Regards,

fps


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Received on Friday, 12 January 2007 14:24:51 UTC