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

Brian,

I'm with you so far.  I think you've picked up my concern.  I wait to see 
where this goes.

(Regarding Dave's comments, I agree with him, but I don't think it impacts 
the underlying debate.  Suggest s|<em>|<em/>| for ongoing discussion.

#g
--

At 10:45 29/07/03 +0100, Brian McBride wrote:

>On Tue, 2003-07-29 at 00:35, Graham Klyne wrote:
>
>[...]
>
> > >Their representations are different. But why do their denotations
> > >have to be different?
>
>[...]
>
> > >But note that we are not speaking about changing the interpretation
> > >of something by changing from plain literal to XML literal, we are
> > >speaking about two different representations ((1) and (2)) that
> > >could/should denote the same string of characters.
> >
> > I thought about that, but within the current scheme couldn't see any 
> way to
> > make it work, for the reason noted above.
> >
> > I don't think I've anything more constructive to add at this stage, and
> > should back off.  Maybe someone else can see a way past the block that I
> > perceive?
>
>I haven't followed this thread in detail, so may be off base, but in
>this last message I see something that may be relevant.
>
>Martin's use of the terms "interpretation" and denotation may be
>different to ours, as suggested elsewhere by Pat.  Perhaps we have not
>made clear, what I'll loosely call the substition rule.
>
>Martin, the issue is one of round tripping.  Given the following input:
>
><rdf:Description>
>   <eg:prop rdf:parseType="Literal"><em></eg:prop>
></rdf:Description>
>
>If the xml literal *denotes* the character string "<em>", and in,
>
><rdf:Description>
>   <eg:prop>&lt;em&gt;</eg:prop>
></rdf:Description>
>
>the plain literal also denotes the character string "<em>", then it is
>legal for an RDF processor to substitute one for another, e.g. an RDF
>copy program could read the first of these and write the second because
>their semantics, according to RDF, are exactly the same.
>
>I don't think anyone wants that.
>
>Martin: does the "substitution rule" explain why the denotations must be
>different?
>
>Now, Martin may have spotted something we have missed.  I suggest a way
>to describe this clearly.  We have three concepts, concrete syntax
>(rdf/xml), abstract syntax (closest rep is n-triples) and denotation.
>This can be described in a three column table, concrete syntax, abstract
>syntax and denotation.
>
>I think what we have at the moment is:
>
>Concrete Syntax                 | Abstract Syntax       | Denotation
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
><eg:prop>a</eg:prop>            | "a"                   | "a"
><eg:prop>&lt;em&gt;</eg:prop>   | "<em>"                | "<em>"
><eg:prop pt="L"><em></eg:prop>  | "<em>^^rdf:XMLLiteral | C("<em>")
><eg:prop pt="L">&amp;</eg:prop> | "&"^^rdf:XMLLiteral   | C("&")
>
>I've abbreviated rdf:parseType="Literal" to pt="L" to fit on one line.
>C(x) is cannonicalization of x, encoded as a UTF8 octet sequence, e.g.
>C("&") is the octet sequence corresponding to "&amp;".
>The relationship between the abstract syntax and the denotation must be
>functional - i.e. there is only one denotation (per interpretation) for
>any given fragment of abstract syntax.
>
>The point I made above, is that for any two rows with the same value in
>the denotation column, it doesn't matter what form of concrete syntax
>one uses - they have equivalent meaning and one can be freely
>substituted for the other.
>
>Brian

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>
PGP: 0FAA 69FF C083 000B A2E9  A131 01B9 1C7A DBCA CB5E

Received on Tuesday, 29 July 2003 11:27:26 UTC