Re: LC Issue xmlsch-08 proposed response

At 12:25 25/03/2003 +0000, Dave Beckett wrote:


>Updating
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Mar/0131.html
>Deleting item 7 which I felt wasn't so helpful.
>
>I would use this to respond to the submitted but the suggestion in
>the last telcon was that I batch these responses up and send in one
>go to match the pattern of the original email Although that will give
>a huge message.

Dave,

I think this one is pretty independent of the others and could go 
separately.  A few comments below, which amount to suggesting that it might 
shortened, or at least a shorter summary given near the front.


>Thoughts?
>
>Dave
>
>---
>
>
>ISSUE http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#xmlsch-08
>
> >    We believe there are probably good reasons for using an rdf:datatype
> >    attribute, instead of re-using the existing xsi:type attribute which
> >    has (when the type is defined in a schema defined by XML Schema 1.0)
> >    the same semantics.In particular, rdf:datatype does not assume or
> >    assert the existence of the type named as a type in a schema defined
> >    by XML Schema, so it would be problematic to use xsi:type.
> >
> >    We do fear, however, that users are likely to find this
> >    near-duplication of the meaning and function of xsi:type confusing. It
> >    is not clear to us what, if anything, can or should be done to
> >    minimize this danger.
>
>
>The RDF Core WG has considered your this comment
>
>   http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#xmlsch-08
>
>and decided
>
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Mar/0124.html
>
>to accept it and give the following explanation.

suggest:

[[
to accept it.

RDFCore agrees that there are good reasons for not using rdf:datatype 
rather than xsi:type.

We agree with XML Schema that one reason is that RDF is not restricted to 
using datatypes defined by XML schema, but allows other datatypes 
conforming to the xml schema model for datatypes.

Another reason is that no other RDF/XML attribute takes qnames as 
arguments.  Allowing this in one specific case is also likely to cause 
confusion.

Whilst RDFCore would have preferred to not to introduce a different 
attribute, it's judgement was that the solution proposed in the last call 
drafts is the best of the options available.

To minimise any confusion, RDFCore has carefully described the correct 
syntax in both the primer and the RDF/XML syntax documents.  We further 
note that incorrect use of xsi:type where rdf:datatype should be used will 
be recognised as a syntax error by RDF parsers.

Please reply, copying www-rdf-comments@w3.org whether this response is an 
acceptable disposition of your comment.

Further, more detailed explanation is given below.

]]

In what follows, you give a lot of detail, which may be over-egging the 
pudding rather.  It could go as is, but you might consider whether it could 
be slimmed down.

Brian



>W3C XML Schema Datatypes in the schema documents
>
>In W3C XML Schema (WXS), types are identified by XML qnames - the
>simple types also have URIs, but that's not the crucial point here,
>in WXS documents, they are given as XML Qnames.  These types or
>references to user types can be explicitly used in the WXS documents
>such as like this:
>
>  <element name="comment" type="xsd:string"/>
>
>  <attribute name="version" type="xsi:number" fixed="1.0"/>
>
>  <restriction base="ex:BaseThing">
>     ...
>  </restriction>
>
>  <extension base="xsi:nonNegativeInteger">
>     ...
>  </extension>
>
>here, using an XML schema simple datatype xsd:string with
>    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
>declared earlier.
>
>The 'type' and 'base' (there may be others) attributes take these
>identifiers have xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
>
>type is the most common seen and usualy written as an attribute
>xsi:type with xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
>declared.
>
>   xsi:type -  http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-1-20010502/#xsi_type
>
>so this is the potential attribute that could have appeared in
>RDF/XML instance documents to say that a particular lexical form was
>an XML schema datatype.
>
>
>RDF Datatypes in instance documents
>
>Example of the solution we chose
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/#section-Syntax-datatyped-literals
>
>RDF datatypes are identified by URI-references and thus to indicate
>that a piece of RDF/XML is a datatype, you need to give the URI
>somewhere.  Existing (untyped) literals are used like this:
>
>As element content:
>    <ex:prop>foo</ex:prop>
>
>As attribute content:
>    <ex:Node ... ex:prop="foo" ... />
>
>The latter is seen as an abbreviation or collapsed form, the former
>the more general form.  The other things that can apply to literals
>are the in-scope XML language:
>
>As element content:
>    <ex:prop xml:lang="en">foo</ex:prop>
>
>As attribute content:
>    <ex:Node ... ex:prop="foo" xml:lang="en" ... />
>
>(of course xml:lang can be on any outer element)
>
>So it was natural to allow datatypes by creating an extra attribute
>in the element form.  Using it in the attribute form would have meant
>all the attributes values were of the same datatype, not very useful,
>wasn't proposed.  Thus a datatyped RDF literal is used in the
>instance data in the element form with a new rdf:datatype attribute:
>
>    <ex:prop xml:lang="en" rdf:datatype="http://example.org/dt">foo</ex:prop>
>    <ex:prop rdf:datatype="http://example.org/dt">foo</ex:prop>
>
>(Note, whether xml:lang values applies to such datatypes/is involved
>in the datatype mapping is another issue, please don't get
>distracted!)
>
>Now above deliberately didn't give an XML schema datatype URI in the
>example above since it was agreed by the working group that any
>datatype should be allowed (identified by a URI), not just the simple
>XSD ones.
>
>On the choice of attribute name, rdf:type was already used for the
>class/instance relation and rdf:datatype was seen as adequate.
>
>
>On using xsi:type in RDF/XML
>
>Not in any particular order, but this is my summary of the main RDF
>Core WG issues for the RDF/XML syntax on encoding datatypes using
>xsi:type and why the rdf:datatype solution was used.
>
>1. xsi:type content is an XML Qname not a URI
>
>Thus cannot indicate any arbitrary datatype URI reference, so another
>attribute would be needed for that case (like rdf:datatypeURI) -
>adding two attributes would be worse than adding one.
>
>2. XML Qname attribute content in RDF/XML
>
>This would be the first attribute in RDF/XML to take a XML Qname
>value (a big step).  This would require extra explanation so that
>existing users wouldn't confuse them with those that took URIs.
>
>3. Namespace declarations, prefixes
>
>It would also require instance documents to declare the xsi namespace
>prefix and have to also check for any namespaces declared inside such
>xsi:type values and declare those too - again new implementations and
>explanation needed.
>
>4. xsi:type would be confused with rdf:type
>
>Since the former takes Qnames and the latter URI references, it would
>be possible to get the name wrong and be confused at the errors.
>Although xsi:type wouldn't be legal everywhere rdf:type was, rdf:type
>would have been allowed on elements that took xsi:type.
>
>5. confusing URIs and Qnames
>
>A bad choice of namespace prefixes might make cause other problems in
>xsi:type values, confusing them for URIs.  It would also be more than
>likely that people would try to use Qnames in rdf:type attribute values.
>
>6. xsi:type is illegal in RDF/XML now, unlikely to be used accidently
>
>If somebody was tempted to use xsi:type, it would likely cause the
>parsing to fail.  It is only ever used as an attribute in WXS
>documents and to use it on a literal in RDF/XML would be something
>like this:
>
>      <ex:prop xsi:type="xsd:string">foo</ex:prop>
>
>which is forbidden by grammar production
> 
>http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20030123/#literalPropertyElt

Received on Tuesday, 25 March 2003 12:02:46 UTC