Re: rdfms-literal-is-xml-structure: Why?

On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Ron Daniel wrote:

> Dan Connolly raised this issue, stating it as:
>
>    A statement with a parseType of 'Literal' has as its object
>    an XML structure, not a simple string. For example, the first
>    character of the literal <foo>bar</foo> is not '<'.
>
> This is an interesting suggestion. It raises several questions.
> I'll confine myself to one (at least for now)...
>
> 1) What evidence is there that this was the intent of the
> M&S 1.0 specification?
>
>
> Searching through the archives of the w3c-rdf-syntax-wg
> list for 'infoset' turns up VERY few messages. Other than
> the indexes into the lists, I see only three:
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-rdf-syntax-wg/1998Oct/0089.html
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-rdf-syntax-wg/1998Oct/0093.html
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/1998OctDec/0030.html
>
> In fact, these are all in the same thread, meaning that in
> all the email generated by the rdf-syntx WG, 'infoset' had one
> unique mention.
>
> Re-reading those messages, IMHO, supports a very different
> interpretation of the WG intent - that parseType="Literal" was a
> stop-gap measure to let us deal with embedded XML content through
> the simple expedient of turning off RDF parsing of that content.
> In fact, the phrase "generates no tuples" is used in the emails
> above in a manner that seems to indicate that the WG wanted to
> completely ignore the content and markup in the Literal, and treat it
> as a simple string. Later applications might do something with the
> markup.
>
> If that is the case, then the clarification document can't say
> that M&S 1.0 requires the generation of tuples for the infoset of
> the embedded content. That seems the opposite of the intent.
>
>
> Dan's suggestion could be within the scope of a 2.0 revisitation
> of M&S, but clearly seems to exceed our chartered tasks.

Regarding the aspect of our charter relating purely to revision of
the Model and Syntax REC, I agree. However one might argue that we have a
little more room to move since we also chartered to complete our work on
the (as yet unfinalised) RDF Schema document. This includes consideration
of a better approach to typing of literal strings in the light of XML
Schema and developments in the XML world that weren't available in 1998.

In my view the availability of a widely implemented and understood
approach to structuring of XML literals would help us decide whether to
take a liberal or strict view of our charted role. Right now I don't see
much implemented in this area so am correspondingly inclined towards
conservatism.

Dan

Received on Wednesday, 11 July 2001 23:22:51 UTC