Re: first pass parseType="Literal" text for primer

Jeremy Carroll wrote:
> 
> Frank Manola wrote:
> 
> >
> > 2.  What happens if someone, instead of using parsetype="Literal",
> > writes an element with markup content as a regular typed literal with an
> > rdf:datatype attribute value of rdf:XMLLiteral?  I would assume this is
> > supposed to work the same way as writing parsetype="Literal", and the
> > element content needs to obey the same rules, but we don't explicitly
> > say anything about it (either saying it's allowed, and it works the same
> > way, or explicitly forbidding it).  Syntax doesn't seem to explicitly
> > cover this case either.
> >
> > --Frank
> 
> The lowest cost technique to achieve clarity without over investing in this
> corner case, would be to add another test case that does precisely that.

Achieve clarity for whom?  We already describe datatypes in the Primer. 
We already mention (just like Concepts does) that all these datatypes
are defined externally to RDF except one:  rdf:XMLLiteral.  We already
describe how typed literals are written in RDF/XML.  We now want to add
discussion of parseType="Literal" to the Primer.  OK, that's cool, but
how does it strain clarity to explicitly say that, at bottom, datatype
rdf:XMLLiteral behaves like all the datatypes we already talk about,
except that (at the moment) it wants some often-a-pain-to-write-by-hand
lexical forms (described in Concepts), and we provide
parseType="Literal" to help with writing them (at least that's one way
to spin it)?  It seems to me that the corner case, if there is one, is
parseType="Literal", not the datatypes.  

I'd note that Section 5.1 of Concepts says "RDF provides for XML content
as a possible literal value. This *typically* originates from the use of
rdf:parseType="Literal" in the RDF/XML Syntax [RDF-SYNTAX]."  My
emphasis on the "typically", which certainly seems to leave one
wondering about the other cases. 

By the way, you never answered the "What happens..." question?

> 
> The syntax doc could link to it, maybe - but this certainly is not primer
> material.
> 

Well, I guess you could say that about lots of things in the Primer. 
It's the result of all that "clarifying" of the other documents... :-)

--Frank


-- 
Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
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Received on Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:53:11 UTC