RE: N-Triples VS RDF/XML bNode identifiers

I've not read the comment yet, going on Graham's quote.

Suggested response is:

[[
In RDF/XML it would be unnatural to restrict bnode identifiers to US ASCII.
This would prevent document authors from using bnode IDs with mnemonic
identifiers in Thai for example.
Given the goals of N-triple - a testing language, the restriction to
US-ASCII is well-motivated.

Thus it is not possible to align the two concepts while being faithful to
the design goals of the two languages.
]]

It would be better to quote from the docs - I suspect there's a suitable
piece about Ntriple being in US ASCII.

Jeremy



> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-rdfcore-wg-request@w3.org
> [mailto:w3c-rdfcore-wg-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Graham Klyne
> Sent: 28 October 2003 11:54
> To: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
> Subject: Fwd: N-Triples VS RDF/XML bNode identifiers
>
>
>
>  From RDF-comments [1]:
>
> >While parsing the RDF/XML, the parser generated bNode IDs that were
> >legal according to the RDF/XML specs and these were written as-is to the
> >N-Triples document. An example bNode identifier is "node09FC-1E4A-2". In
> >RDF/XML, the dashes (and underscores, etc.) are legal characters for
> >bNode identifiers. In N-Triples, however, only (ASCII-)letters and
> >number can be used. Thus the procedure sketched out above resulted in an
> >illegal N-Triples document.
> >
> >So, my question is: wouldn't it be convenient to make the two
> >definitions identical?
>
> Maybe it would be convenient, but I think any response should point out
> (and Concepts is quite clear about this [2]) that any particular
> representation of bnodes is always an artefact of the particular syntax
> used.  When reading any syntax that uses bnode identifiers, applications
> must always be prepared to re-allocate the identifiers.
>
> I might even argue that having different syntax for N-triples and RDF/XML
> is (almost) a Good Thing, since it reinforces this point.
>
> #g
> --
>
> [1]
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/2003OctDec/0067.html

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/#section-URI-Vocabulary
     http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/#dfn-blank-node-id


------------
Graham Klyne
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Received on Tuesday, 28 October 2003 07:29:35 UTC