Re: Scoping bnodes (was: Re: Blank Nodes Re: Toward easier RDF: a proposal)

On 12/3/18 4:38 PM, Patrick J Hayes wrote:
>>     Bnodes introduced to encode
>>     structures like n-ary relational assertions, or lists, or some
>>     complicated piece of OWL syntax, should have a very narrow scope
>>     corresponding to the exact boundaries of those structures, and
>>     hence should be ‘invisible’ from outside (which is why it is fine
>>     to make them vanish in a higher-level syntax using [ ] or ( ).)
>>
>>     Ideally, RDF2 should provide for these structures directly, but
>>     maybe we can get the benefit with a relatively tiny step, just by
>>     having a syntax for RDF which has explicit scoping brackets. 

Interesting idea, and I can see it being useful for RDF streams or very 
large RDF datasets -- to enable blank node labels to be safely reused 
without collision -- but I am also curious:

1. How would you envision scope names being used?

2. How would these scopes differ from named graphs?

3. Would (or could or should) these scopes correspond to N3's curly 
brace syntax for grouping triples?

David Booth

Received on Wednesday, 5 December 2018 21:42:34 UTC