- From: Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfpschneider@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:22:39 -0700
- To: David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
- CC: Phil Archer <phila@w3.org>, semantic-web@w3.org
On 06/17/2013 09:47 PM, David Booth wrote: > On 06/17/2013 04:41 PM, Phil Archer wrote: >> On 17/06/2013 06:26, David Booth wrote: >> [..] >>> For example, suppose the client application dereferences a URI and >>> obtains a comma-separated-values (CSV) document. unless the client >>> application knew how to interpret that file, it would not be able to >>> make meaningful use of that data. >> >> Subject to W3C Member approval and other bits of process, we hope to >> launch a WG to define exactly that in the near future (say Sept/Oct). >> i.e. define a metadata format and association mechanisms with CSV so >> that you can express row and column headings, data types and, I hope, >> basic templating rules for turning string values into URIs but I'm not >> sure that's in the charter (I'm thinking something like GREL >> http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/wiki/GRELFunctions). That same >> data could be used to generate other formats besides RDF (OData etc.) > > Excellent! If it allows CSV documents to be standards-based interpreted as > RDF then it would be a perfect example of the fact that data does not have > to *look* (overtly) like RDF to *be* RDF. > > David > > Yeah, if the metadata is something like: 1/ a column can either be the id for the node of the row (in which case it must be an IRI column or a blank node id column) or be related to the node by a given property, if there is no id column then the nodes are blank nodes with no id; 2/ each column is typed, either as an IRI, in which case a prefix may be given to turn the string in the column into an IRI, or as a blank node id, in which case the string is a blank node id local to the table or local to the document depending on a flag, or as a typed value, in which case the datatype IRI and optionally language tag is given; and 3/ each column says whether empty cells produce a value (or IRI or blank node id) or not; then CSV documents can be thought of as RDF. If a CSV document can include multiple CSV tables, then CSV documents can even be reasonably efficient carriers of RDF. peter PS: What's left for the WG to do?
Received on Tuesday, 18 June 2013 05:23:09 UTC