Copyright ©2002 W3C® (MIT, INRIA, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a framework for representing information in the Web.
This document defines an XML syntax for RDF called RDF/XML in terms of XML Namespaces, the XML Information Set and XML Base. The formal grammar for the syntax is annotated with actions for generating the triples of the RDF Graph as defined in RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax. This is done using the N-Triples RDF Graph serializing format which enables more precise recording of the mapping in a machine processable form. The mappings are recorded as tests cases, gathered and published in RDF Test Cases.
This is an editors' draft despite anything else said here.
This is a W3C
RDF Core Working Group
Last Call Working Draft produced as part of the W3C
Semantic Web Activity
(Activity Statement).
It incorporates decisions made by the Working Group
updating the XML syntax for RDF from the original
RDF Model & Syntax [RDF-MS] document
in terms of the
XML Information Set
[INFOSET].
including new support for
XML Base [XML-BASE],
RDF datatyping,
rdf:nodeID
for referencing Blank Nodes and
rdf:parseType="Collection"
for
expressing a collection of nodes.
This document is being released for review by W3C Members and
other interested parties to encourage feedback and comments,
especially with regard to how the changes affect existing
implementations and content. It represents a revision
of the RDF/XML syntax as described in the
grammar section
of RDF Model & Syntax [RDF-MS].
The revision removed some parts of the syntax -
rdf:aboutEach
and rdf:aboutEachPrefix
(see issues rdfms-aboutEach-on-object and
rdfms-abouteachprefix)
and added support for
Typed Literals using rdf:datatype
,
rdf:nodeID
to allow referencing of Blank Nodes and
rdf:parseType="Collection"
for collections of
Nodes.
The detailed changes from the previous
8 November 2002 working draft
are described in the Changes section.
This is a public W3C Working Draft and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use W3C Working Drafts as reference material or to cite as other than "work in progress". A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
In conformance with W3C policy requirements, known patent and IPR constraints associated with this Working Draft are detailed on the RDF Core Working Group Patent Disclosure page.
Comments on this document are invited and should be sent to the public mailing list www-rdf-comments@w3.org. An archive of comments is available at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/.
1 Introduction
2 An XML syntax for RDF
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Node Elements and Property Elements
2.3 Multiple Property Elements
2.4 Empty Property Elements
2.5 Property Attributes
2.6 Completing the Document - Document Element and XML Declaration
2.7 Languages - xml:lang
2.8 XML Literals - rdf:parseType="Literal"
2.9 Typed Literals - rdf:datatype
2.10 Identifying Blank Nodes - rdf:nodeID
2.11 Omitting Blank Nodes - rdf:parseType="Resource"
2.12 Omitting Blank Nodes - Property Attributes on an empty Property Element
2.13 Typed Node Elements
2.14 Abbreviating URI References - rdf:ID
and xml:base
2.15 Container membership property elements - rdf:li
and rdf:_
n
2.16 Collections - rdf:parseType="Collection"
2.17 Reifying Statements - rdf:bagID
and rdf:ID
2.18 More Information
3 Terminology
4 RDF MIME type, file extension and Macintosh file type
5 Global Issues
5.1 The RDF Namespace
5.2 Identifiers
5.3 Resolving URIs
5.4 Constraints
6 Syntax Data Model
6.1 Events
6.2 Information Set Mapping
6.3 Grammar Notation
7 RDF/XML Grammar
7.1 Grammar Summary
7.2 Grammar Productions
7.3 Reification Rules
7.4 List Expansion Rules
7.5 Bag Expansion Rules
8 Serializing an RDF Graph to RDF/XML
9 RDF/XML in HTML
10 Acknowledgments
11 References
A Syntax Schemas (Informative)
A.1 RELAX NG Compact Syntax Schema (Informative)
B Changes (Informative)
This document defines the XML [XML] syntax for RDF Graphs which was originally defined in the RDF Model & Syntax [RDF-MS] W3C Recommendation. Subsequent implementations of this syntax and comparison of the resulting RDF Graphs have shown that there was ambiguity - implementations generated different graphs and certain syntax forms were not widely implemented. These issues were generally made as either feedback to the www-rdf-comments@w3.org (archive) or from discussions on the RDF Interest Group list www-rdf-interest@w3.org (archive) .
The RDF Core Working Group is chartered to respond to the need for a number of fixes, clarifications and improvements to the specification of RDF's abstract graph and XML syntax as recorded in the RDF Core Working Group issues list. The Working Group invites feedback from the developer community on the effects of its proposals on existing implementations and documents.
This document revises the original RDF/XML grammar in terms of XML Information Set [INFOSET] Information Items which moves away from the rather low-level details of XML, such as particular forms of empty elements. This allows the grammar to be more precisely recorded and the mapping from the XML syntax to the RDF Graph more clearly shown. The mapping to the RDF Graph is done by emitting statements in the form defined in the N-Triples section of RDF Test Cases [RDF-TESTS] Working Draft which creates an RDF Graph, that has semantics defined by RDF Semantics [RDF-SEMANTICS] Working Draft.
The complete specification of RDF consists of a number of documents:
This section introduces the RDF/XML syntax, describes how it encodes RDF Graphs and explains this with examples. If there is any conflict between this informal description and the formal description of the syntax and grammar in sections 6 Syntax Data Model and 7 RDF/XML Grammar, the latter two sections take precedence.
The RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax [RDF-CONCEPTS] working draft defines the RDF Graph data model (Section 3.1) and the RDF Graph syntax (Section 6.2). Along with the RDF Semantics [RDF-SEMANTICS] working draft this provides an abstract syntax with a formal semantics for it. The RDF Graph has Nodes and labeled directed Arcs that link pairs of Nodes and this is represented as a set of RDF triples where each triple contains a Subject Node, Property Arc and Object Node. Nodes are RDF URI References, RDF Literals or are Blank Nodes and for encoding in syntaxes may be given a document-local, non-RDF URI References identifier called a Blank Node Identifier. Arcs are labeled with RDF URI References. The property arc can be interpreted as either a relationship between two nodes or as defining an attribute value (object node) for some subject node.
In order to encode the graph in XML, the nodes and arcs have to be represented by XML element names, attribute names, element content and attribute content. RDF/XML uses XML QNames to represent RDF URI References. The namespace prefix part of all QNames is associated with a RDF URI Reference as defined in XML Namespaces [XML-NS]. The RDF URI Reference represented by a QName is determined by appending the local name part of the QName to the RDF URI Reference associated with the namespace prefix part of the QName. This is used to shorten the RDF URI References of all property arcs labels and some nodes. RDF URI References identifying subject and object nodes can also be stored as XML attribute values or XML element names via QNames. RDF Literals (which are only object nodes) become either XML element text content or XML attribute values.
A graph can be considered a collection of paths of the form Node, Arc, Node, Arc, Node, Arc, ... Node which cover the entire graph. In RDF/XML these turn into sequences of elements inside elements which alternate between elements for Nodes and Arcs. This has been called a series of Node/Arc stripes. The Node at the start of the sequence turns into the outermost element, the next arc turns into a child element, and so on. The stripes generally start at the top of an RDF/XML document and always begin with nodes.
Several RDF/XML examples are given in the following sections building up to complete RDF/XML documents. Example 7 is the first complete RDF/XML document.
An RDF Graph is given in Figure 1 where the nodes are represented as ovals and contain their RDF URI References where they have them, all the arcs are labeled with RDF URI References and Plain Literal nodes have been written in rectangles.
If we follow one Node, Arc ... , Node path through the graph shown in Figure 2:
This corresponds to the Node/Arc stripes:
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar
http://example.org/terms/editor
http://example.org/terms/homePage
http://purl.org/net/dajobe/
In RDF/XML, the sequence of 5 nodes and arcs in
Figure 2 corresponds to
the usage of 5 XML elements of two types, for the graph nodes and
arcs. These are conventionally called Node Elements and
Property Elements respectively. In the striping shown in
Example 1, rdf:Description
is the
node element (used 3 times for the three nodes) and
ex:editor
and ex:homePage
are the 2
property elements.
<rdf:Description>
<ex:editor>
<rdf:Description>
<ex:homePage>
<rdf:Description>
</rdf:Description>
</ex:homePage>
</rdf:Description>
</ex:editor>
</rdf:Description>
The Figure 2 graph consists of some nodes
that are
RDF URI References
(and others that are not) and this can be added
to the RDF/XML using the rdf:about
attribute on node
elements to give the result in Example 2:
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description> <ex:homePage> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"> </rdf:Description> </ex:homePage> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> </rdf:Description>
Adding the other two paths through the Figure 1 graph to the RDF/XML in Example 2 gives the result in Example 3:
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description> <ex:homePage> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"> </rdf:Description> </ex:homePage> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description> <ex:fullName>Dave Beckett</ex:fullName> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <dc:title>RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)</dc:title> </rdf:Description>
There are several abbreviations that can be used to make common uses easier to write down. In particular, it is common that a subject node in the RDF Graph has multiple outgoing arcs. RDF/XML provides an abbreviation for the corresponding syntax when a node element about a resource has multiple property elements. This can be abbreviated by using multiple child property elements inside the node element describing the subject node.
Taking Example 3, there are
two node elements that can take multiple property elements.
The subject node with URI Reference
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar
has property elements ex:editor
and ex:title
and the node element for the blank node can take ex:homePage
and ex:fullName
. This abbreviation
gives the result shown in Example 4:
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description> <ex:homePage> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"> </rdf:Description> </ex:homePage> <ex:fullName>Dave Beckett</ex:fullName> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> <dc:title>RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)</dc:title> </rdf:Description>
When an arc in an RDF Graph points to an object node which has no
further arcs, which appears in RDF/XML as an empty node element
sequence such as the pair
<rdf:Description rdf:about="...">
</rdf:Description>
, this
form can be shortened. This is done by using the
RDF URI Reference
of the object node as the value of an XML attribute rdf:resource
on the containing property element and making the property element empty.
In this example, the property element ex:homePage
contains an empty node element with the
RDF URI Reference
http://purl.org/net/dajobe/
. This can be replaced with
the empty property element form giving the result shown in
Example 5:
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description> <ex:homePage rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"/> <ex:fullName>Dave Beckett</ex:fullName> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> <dc:title>RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)</dc:title> </rdf:Description>
When a property element's content is string literal,
it may be possible to use it as an XML attribute on the
containing node element.
This can be done for multiple properties on the same node element
only if the property element name is not repeated
(required by XML - attribute names are unique on an XML element)
and any in-scope xml:lang
on the
property element's string literal (if any) are the same (see Section 2.7)
This abbreviation is known as a Property Attribute
and can be applied to any node element or with the
rdf:parseType="Resource"
form
(see Section 2.11).
This abbreviation can also be used when the property element is
rdf:type
and it has an rdf:resource
attribute
the value of which is interpreted as a
RDF URI Reference object node.
In Example 5:,
there are two property elements with string literal content,
the dc:title
and ex:fullName
property elements. These can be replaced with property attributes
giving the result shown in Example 6:
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar" dc:title="RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description ex:fullName="Dave Beckett"> <ex:homePage rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"/> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> </rdf:Description>
To create a complete RDF/XML document, the serialization of the
graph into XML must be contained inside an rdf:RDF
XML
element which becomes the top-level XML document element.
Conventionally the rdf:RDF
element is also used to
declare the XML namespaces that are used, although that is not
required. The XML specification also requires an XML declaration at
the top of the document with the XML version and possibly the XML
content encoding (this is optional but recommended).
This could be done for any of the complete graph examples from Example 3 onwards but taking the smallest Example 6 and adding the final components, gives the complete RDF/XML representation of the original Figure 1 graph in Example 7:
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar" dc:title="RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)"> <ex:editor> <rdf:Description ex:fullName="Dave Beckett"> <ex:homePage rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/" /> </rdf:Description> </ex:editor> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
xml:lang
RDF/XML permits the use of the xml:lang
attribute as defined by
2.12 Language Identification
of XML 1.0 [XML]
to allow the identification of content language.
This can be used on any node element or property element
to indicate that the included content is
in the given language. The most specific in-scope language present
(if any) is applied to property element string literal content or
property attribute values. The xml:lang=""
form
is used to indicate absence of language.
Some examples of marking content languages for RDF properties are shown in Example 8:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar"> <dc:title>RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)</dc:title> <dc:title xml:lang="en">RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)</dc:title> <dc:title xml:lang="en-US">RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)</dc:title> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/buchen/baum" xml:lang="de"> <dc:title>Das Baum</dc:title> <dc:description>Das Buch ist außergewöhnlich</dc:description> <dc:title xml:lang="en">The Tree</dc:title> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:parseType="Literal"
RDF allows
XML Literals
([RDF-CONCEPTS] Section 5, XML Content within an RDF Graph)
to be given as the object node of arcs.
These are written in RDF/XML as content of a property element (not
a property attribute) and indicated using the
rdf:parseType="Literal"
attribute on the containing
property element.
An example of writing an XML literal is given in
Example 9 where
there is a single RDF triple with the subject node
RDF URI Reference
http://example.org/item01
, the arc label
RDF URI Reference
http://example.org/stuff/1.0/prop
(from
ex:prop
) and the object node with XML Literal
content beginning a:Box
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/item01"> <ex:prop rdf:parseType="Literal" xmlns:a="http://example.org/a#"><a:Box required="true"> <a:widget size="10" /> <a:grommit id="23" /></a:Box> </ex:prop> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:datatype
RDF allows
Typed Literals
to be given as the object node of arcs. These consist of a literal
string (with optional language) and a datatype
RDF URI Reference. This is handled by using the same syntax for
literal string nodes in the property element form (not property
attribute) but with an additional
rdf:datatype="
datatypeURI"
attribute on the property element. Any
RDF URI Reference can be used in the attribute.
An example of an RDF
Typed Literal
is given in Example 10 where
there is a single RDF triple with the subject node
RDF URI Reference
http://example.org/item01
, the arc label
RDF URI Reference
http://example.org/stuff/1.0/size
(from
ex:size
) and the object node with the
Typed Literal
("123", http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#int
, no language xml:lang=""
)
intending to be interpreted as a
W3C XML Schema datatype int.
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/item01"> <ex:size rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#int">123</ex:size> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:nodeID
Blank Nodes in the RDF Graph are distinct but have no
RDF URI Reference identifier.
It is sometimes required that the same graph Blank Node is referred to in the
RDF/XML in multiple places, such as at the subject and object
of several RDF triples. In this case, a Blank Node Identifier
can be given to the Blank Node for identifying it
in the document. The scope of this identifier is a particular
RDF/XML document. A Blank Node Identifier is used
on a node element to replace
rdf:about="
RDF URI Reference"
or on a property element to replace
rdf:resource="
RDF URI Reference"
with rdf:nodeID="
Blank Node Identifier"
in both cases.
Taking Example 7 and explicitly giving
a Blank Node Identifier of abc
to the blank node in it
gives the result shown in Example 11.
The second rdf:Description
property element is
about the blank node.
rdf:nodeID
identifying the blank node (example11.rdf output example11.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar" dc:title="RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)"> <ex:editor rdf:nodeID="abc"/> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="abc" ex:fullName="Dave Beckett"> <ex:homePage rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"/> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:parseType="Resource"
Blank Nodes (not RDF URI Reference nodes) in RDF Graphs can be written
in a form that allows the
<rdf:Description>
</rdf:Description>
pair to be omitted.
This can be done by putting an
rdf:parseType="Resource"
attribute on the containing property element
that turns the property element into a property and node element,
which can itself have both property elements and property attributes.
Taking the earlier Example 7,
the contents of the ex:editor
property element
could be alternatively done in this fashion to give
the form shown in Example 12:
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar" dc:title="RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)"> <ex:editor rdf:parseType="Resource"> <ex:fullName>Dave Beckett</ex:fullName> <ex:homePage rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/dajobe/"/> </ex:editor> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
If all of the property elements on a blank node element have
string literal values with the same in-scope xml:lang
value (if present) and each of these property elements appears at
most once and there is at most one rdf:type
property
element with a RDF URI Reference object node, these can be abbreviated by
moving them to be property attributes on the containing property
element which is made an empty element.
Taking the earlier Example 5,
the ex:editor
property element contains a
blank node element with two property elements
ex:fullname
and ex:homePage
.
ex:homePage
is not suitable here since it
does not have a string literal value, so it is being
ignored. The abbreviated form moves
ex:fullName
property element to be
a property attribute on the ex:editor
property element
and the blank node element becomes implicit. The result is shown in
Example 13.
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar" dc:title="RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)"> <ex:editor ex:fullName="Dave Beckett" /> <!-- Note the ex:homePage property has been ignored for this example --> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
It is common for RDF Graphs to have rdf:type
arcs
from subject nodes. These are conventionally called Typed
Nodes in the graph, or Typed Node Elements in the
RDF/XML. RDF/XML allows this triple to be expressed more concisely.
by replacing the rdf:Description
node element name with
the namespaced-element corresponding to the
RDF URI Reference of the value of
the type relationship. There may, of course, be multiple rdf:type
arcs but only one can be used in this way, the others must remain as
property elements or property attributes.
This form is also commonly used in RDF/XML with the built-in
classes in The RDF Namespace:
rdf:Seq
, rdf:Bag
, rdf:Alt
,
rdf:Statement
, rdf:Property
and
rdf:List
.
For example, the RDF/XML in Example 14 could be written as shown in Example 15.
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/thing"> <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/Document"/> <dc:title>A marvelous thing</dc:title> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:type
(example15.rdf output example15.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <ex:Document rdf:about="http://example.org/thing"> <dc:title>A marvelous thing</dc:title> </ex:Document> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:ID
and xml:base
RDF/XML allows further abbreviating RDF URI References in XML attributes in two
ways. The XML Infoset provides a base URI attribute xml:base
that sets the base URI for resolving relative RDF URI References, otherwise the base URI is that of the document. This applies to
all RDF/XML attributes that deal with RDF URI References which are rdf:about
,
rdf:resource
, rdf:ID
, rdf:bagID
and rdf:datatype
.
The rdf:ID
attribute on a node element (not property
element, that has another meaning) can be used instead of
rdf:about
and gives a relative RDF URI Reference equivalent to #
concatenated with the rdf:ID
attribute value. So for
example if rdf:ID="name"
, that would be equivalent
to rdf:about="#name"
. This provides an additional
check since the same name can only appear once in the
scope of an xml:base
value (or document, if none is given),
so is useful for defining a set of distinct,
related terms relative to the same RDF URI Reference.
Example 16 shows abbreviating the node
RDF URI Reference of http://example.org/here/#snack
using an
xml:base
of http://example.org/here/
and
an rdf:ID
on the rdf:Description
node element.
The object node of the ex:prop
arc is an
absolute RDF URI Reference
resolved from the rdf:resource
XML attribute content
using the in-scope base URI to give the
RDF URI Reference
http://example.org/here/fruit/apple
.
rdf:ID
and xml:base
for shortening URis (example16.rdf output example16.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/" xml:base="http://example.org/here/"> <rdf:Description rdf:ID="snack"> <ex:prop rdf:resource="fruit/apple"/> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:li
and rdf:_
nRDF has a set of container membership properties
and corresponding property elements that are mostly used with
instances of the
rdf:Seq
, rdf:Bag
and rdf:Alt
classes which may be written as typed node elements. The list properties are
rdf:_1
, rdf:_2
etc. and can be written
as property elements or property attributes as shown in
Example 17. There is an rdf:li
special property element that is equivalent to
rdf:_1
, rdf:_2
in order,
explained in detail in section 7.4.
The equivalent RDF/XML to Example 17 written
in this form is shown in Example 18.
<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"> <rdf:Seq rdf:about="http://example.org/favourite-fruit"> <rdf:_1 rdf:resource="http://example.org/banana"/> <rdf:_2 rdf:resource="http://example.org/apple"/> <rdf:_3 rdf:resource="http://example.org/pear"/> </rdf:Seq> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:li
property element for list properties (example18.rdf output example18.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"> <rdf:Seq rdf:about="http://example.org/favourite-fruit"> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://example.org/banana"/> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://example.org/apple"/> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://example.org/pear"/> </rdf:Seq> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:parseType="Collection"
RDF/XML allows an rdf:parseType="Collection"
attribute on a property element to let it contain multiple node
elements. These contained node elements give the set of subject
nodes of the collection. This syntax form corresponds to a set of
triples about the collection of subject nodes, the exact triples
generated are described in detail in
Section 7.2.19 Production parseTypeCollectionPropertyElt.
Example 19 shows a collection of three
nodes elements at the end of the ex:hasFruit
property element using this form.
rdf:parseType="Collection"
(example19.rdf output example19.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/basket"> <ex:hasFruit rdf:parseType="Collection"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/banana"/> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/apple"/> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/pear"/> </ex:hasFruit> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
rdf:bagID
and rdf:ID
The rdf:ID
attribute can be used on a property
element to reify the triple that it generates (See
section 7.3 Reification Rules for the
full details).
The identifier for the triple should be constructed as a
RDF URI Reference
made from the relative URI Reference
#
concatenated with the rdf:ID
attribute
value, resolved against the in-scope base URI. So for example if
rdf:ID="triple"
, that would be equivalent to the RDF URI Reference
formed from relative URI Reference #triple
against the base URI.
Each (rdf:ID
attribute value, base URI)
pair has to be unique in an RDF/XML document and comes from the same
set of values as the rdf:bagID
attribute.
See constraint-id.
Example 20 shows a rdf:ID
being used to reify a triple made from the ex:prop
property element giving the reified triple the
RDF URI Reference http://example.org/triples/#triple1
.
rdf:ID
reifying a property element (example20.rdf output example20.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/" xml:base="http://example.org/triples/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/"> <ex:prop rdf:ID="triple1">blah</ex:prop> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
The rdf:bagID
attribute can be used on a node element
or empty property element with property attributes,
to give an identifier for a rdf:Bag
that lists the
statements generated by the property elements or attributes.
This allows statements to be made about that bag. The
identifier is constructed as a relative RDF URI Reference of #
concatenated with the rdf:bagID
attribute value,
resolved against the in-scope base URI to give an
RDF URI Reference. So for
example if rdf:bagID="bag"
, that would be equivalent
to the RDF URI Reference formed from relative URI Reference #bag
against the
base URI.
Each (rdf:bagID
attribute value, base URI)
has to be unique in the RDF/XML document and from the same set of
names as rdf:ID
.
See constraint-id.
Example 21 shows a rdf:Bag
with RDF URI Reference http://example.org/bags/#bag1
being made of the triples from inside the rdf:Description
node element.
rdf:bagID
describing triples from a node element (example21.rdf output example21.nt)<?xml version="1.0"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:ex="http://example.org/stuff/1.0/" xml:base="http://example.org/bags/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/" rdf:bagID="bag1"> <ex:prop1>blah</ex:prop1> <ex:prop2 rdf:resource="http://example.org/elsewhere/"/> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
The RDF Core Working Group has developed an RDF Primer [RDF-PRIMER] that goes into detail introducing RDF and its applications.
For a longer introduction to the RDF/XML striped syntax with a historical perspective, see RDF: Understanding the Striped RDF/XML Syntax [STRIPEDRDF].
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [KEYWORDS].
The Internet Media Type / MIME type for RDF is
"application/rdf+xml
" -
see RFC 3032
(RFC-3023) section 8.18.
Registration Note: The RDF Core Working Group will register this type with the IETF after this document has passed the Working Draft state, possibly after Recommendation, using the application/rdf+xml Media Type Registration Internet Draft[RDF-MIMETYPE-ID] already published and maintained.
It is recommended that RDF files have the extension
".rdf"
(all lowercase) on all platforms.
It is recommended that RDF files stored on Macintosh HFS file
systems be given a file type of "rdf "
(all lowercase, with a space character as the fourth letter).
Note:
The names aboutEach
and aboutEachPrefix
were removed
from the language and the RDF namespace by the RDF Core Working Group.
See the resolution of issues
rdfms-abouteach and
rdfms-abouteachprefix
for further information.
Note:
The names List
, first
,
rest
and nil
were added for issue
rdfms-seq-representation.
The names XMLLiteral
and datatype
were added
to support RDF datatyping.
The name nodeID
was added
for issue
rdfms-syntax-incomplete.
See the
RDF Core Issues List
for further information.
Note: The Working Group invites feedback from the community on the effects of the removals and additions of these terms on existing implementations and documents and on the costs and benefits of adopting a new namespace URI to reflect this change (currently not proposed by the Working Group).
The
RDF Namespace URI Reference is
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
and is typically used in XML with the prefix rdf
although other prefix strings may be used. The namespace contains
the following names only:
RDF Description ID about bagID parseType resource li nodeID datatype
Seq Bag Alt Statement Property XMLLiteral List
subject predicate object type value first rest _
n
where n is an integer greater than zero.
nil
Any other names are not defined and SHOULD generate a warning when encountered, but should otherwise behave normally.
Throughout this document the terminology rdf:
name
will be used to indicate name is from the RDF namespace
and it has a RDF URI Reference of the concatenation of the
·RDF Namespace URI Reference· and name.
For example, rdf:type
has the RDF URI Reference
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type
The RDF Graph (RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax Section 3) defines three types of nodes and one type of arcs:
RDF URI References (RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax Section 3.1)
can be either given as XML attribute values interpreted as absolute RDF URI References,
XML attribute values interpreted as relative
URI References that are resolved to the in-scope base URI
as described in section section 5.3
to give absolute RDF URI References,
transformed from XML Namespace-qualified element and attributes names
(QNames) or transformed from rdf:ID
and rdf:bagID
attribute values.
Within RDF/XML, XML QNames are transformed into
RDF URI References
by appending the XML local name to the namespace URI. For
example, if the XML Namespace prefix foo
has URI
http://example.org/somewhere/
then the QName
foo:bar
would correspond to the URI
http://example.org/somewhere/bar
. Note that this
restricts which
RDF URI References can be made and the same URI can be given in multiple ways.
The rdf:ID
and
rdf:bagID
values
are transformed into an
RDF URI References
by appending the attribute value to the result of appending
"#" to the in-scope base URI which is defined in
Section 5.3 Resolving URIs
RDF Literals (RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax 6.5) are either Plain Literals (ibid), or Typed Literals (ibid). The latter includes XML Literals (ibid section 5, XML Content within an RDF Graph).
Blank Nodes have distinct identity in the RDF Graph.
When the graph is written in a syntax such as RDF/XML, these
blank nodes may need graph-local identifiers and a syntax
in order to preserve this distinction. These local identifiers are called
Blank Node Identifiers
and are used in RDF/XML as values of the rdf:nodeID
attribute
with the syntax given in Production nodeIdAttr.
These identifiers may also be generated as part of the mapping
from the RDF/XML to the graph for new distinct blank nodes. Such
generated blank node identifiers must not clash with any blank node
identifiers from rdf:nodeID
attribute values. This can
be implemented by any method that preserves the distinct identity of
all the blank nodes in the graph. One method would be to add a
constant prefix to all the rdf:nodeID
attribute values
and ensure no generated blank node identifiers ever used that prefix.
RDF/XML supports
XML Base [XML-BASE]
which defines a
·base-uri·
accessor for each
·root event· and
·element event·.
Relative URI References are resolved into
RDF URI References
according to the algorithm specified in
XML Base [XML-BASE]
(and RFC 2396).
These specifications do not specify an algorithm for resolving a
fragment identifier alone, such as #foo
, or the empty
string ""
into an
RDF URI Reference. In RDF/XML, a fragment identifier
is transformed into a
RDF URI Reference
by appending the fragment identifier to the in-scope base URI. The
empty string is transformed
into an
RDF URI Reference
by substituting the in-scope base URI.
Test: Indicated by test001.rdf and test001.nt
Test: Indicated by test004.rdf and test004.nt
Test: Indicated by test008.rdf and test008.nt
Test: Indicated by test013.rdf and test013.nt
Test: Indicated by test016.rdf and test016.nt
An empty same document reference "" resolves against the URI part of the Base URI; any fragment part is ignored. See Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) [URIS] section 4.2
Test: Indicated by test013.rdf and test013.nt
Implementor Note: When using a hierarchical base URI that has no path component (/), it must be added before using as a base URI for resolving.
Test: Indicated by test011.rdf and test011.nt
Each application of productions idAttr and bagIdAttr match an attribute. The pair formed by the ·string-value· accessor of the matched attribute and the ·base-uri· accessor of the matched attribute is unique within a single RDF/XML document.
The syntax of the names must match the rdf-id production
Test: Indicated by test014.rdf and test014.nt
This document specifies the syntax of RDF/XML as a grammar on an alphabet of symbols. The symbols are called Events in the style of the [XPATH] Information Set Mapping. A sequence of events is normally derived from an XML document, in which case they are in document order as defined below in Section 6.2 Information Set Mapping. This sequence of events formed are intended to be similar to the sequence of events produced by the [SAX2] XML API from the same XML document. Sequences of events may be checked against the grammar to determine whether they are or are not syntactically well formed RDF/XML.
The grammar productions may include actions which fire when the production is recognised. Taken together these actions define a transformation from any syntactically well formed RDF/XML sequence of events into an RDF Graph represented in the N-Triples language.
This model illustrates one way to create a representation of an RDF Graph from an RDF/XML document. It does not mandate any implementation method - any other method that results in a representation of the same RDF Graph may be used.
In particular:
The syntax does not support non-well-formed XML documents, nor documents that otherwise do not have an XML Information Set; for example, that do not conform to XML Namespaces [XML-NS].
The Infoset requires support for XML Base [XML-BASE]. RDF/XML uses the information item property [base URI], discussed in section 5.3
This specification requires an XML Information Set[INFOSET] which supports at least the following information items and properties for RDF/XML:
There is no mapping of the following items to data model events:
Other information items and properties have no mapping to syntax data model events.
Information items contained inside XML elements matching the parseTypeLiteralPropertyElt production form XML Literals and do not follow this mapping. See parseTypeLiteralPropertyElt for further information.
This section is intended to satisfy the requirements for Conformance in the [INFOSET] specification. It specifies the information items and properties that are needed to implement this specification.
There are six types of event defined in the following subsections. Most events are constructed from an Infoset information item (except for Identifier, Plain Literal and Typed Literal). The effect of an event constructor is to create a new event with a unique identity, distinct from all other events. Events have accessor operations on them. and all have the string-value accessor that may be a static value or computed.
Constructed from a Document Information Item and takes the following accessors and values.
Constructed from an Element Information Item and takes the following accessors and values:
Set to the value of element information item property [attributes].
If the value contains an attribute event xml:lang
(that is, the
·local-name·
accessor of the attribute has value "lang" and the
·namespace-name·
accessor of the attribute has value
"http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"), it is removed
from the list of attributes and the
·language· accessor is set to the
string-value of the attribute.
All other attributes beginning with xml
are then removed
(that is, all attributes with
·namespace-name·
accessors values beginning with
"http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"). Note: the base URI is
computed before any xml:base
attribute is deleted.
Has no accessors. Marks the end of the containing element in the sequence.
Constructed from an Attribute Information Item and takes the following accessors and values:
ID
, bagID
, about
, resource
, parseType
or type
, set to a string value of the
concatenation of the
·RDF Namespace URI Reference·
and the value of the ·local-name· accessor. Other non-namespaced ·local-name· accessor values are forbidden.
NOTE: This support for a limited set of non-namespaced names is REQUIRED and intended to allow RDF/XML documents specified in [RDF-MS] to remain valid; new documents SHOULD NOT use these unqualified attributes and applications MAY choose to warn when the unqualified form is seen in a document.
NOTE:
The construction of
RDF URI References
from XML attributes can generate the same
RDF URI References
from different XML attributes. This can cause ambiguity in the
grammar when matching attribute events (such as when
rdf:about
and about
XML attributes are
both present). Documents that have this are illegal. How this is
forbidden will will be addressed and explained in more detail in
the next version of this working draft.
Constructed from a sequence of one or more consecutive Character Information Items. Has the single accessor:
An event for a RDF URI References which has the following accessors:
These events are constructed by giving a value for the ·identifier· accessor.
For further information on identifiers in the RDF Graph, see section 5.2.
An event for a Blank Node Identifier which has the following accessors:
These events are constructed by giving a value for the ·identifier· accessor.
For further information on identifiers in the RDF Graph, see section 5.2.
An event for a Plain Literal which can have the following accessors:
The value is calculated from the other accessors as follows.
If ·literal-language· is the empty string then the value is the concatenation of """ (1 double quote), the value of the 2 ·literal-value· accessor and """ (1 double quote).
Otherwise the value is the concatenation of """ (1 double quote), the value of the ·literal-value· accessor ""@" (1 double quote and a '@'), and the value of the ·literal-language· accessor.
Note that the double-quoted ·literal-value· string must use the N-Triples string escapes for escaping certain characters such as ".
These events are constructed by giving values for the ·literal-value· and ·literal-language· accessors.
Note: Literals beginning with a Unicode combining character are allowed however they may cause interoperability problems. See [CHARMOD] for further information.
An event for a Typed Literal which can have the following accessors:
The value is calculated from the other accessors as follows.
If ·literal-language· is the empty string then the value is the concatenation of """ (1 double quote), the value of the ·literal-value· accessor and """ (1 double quote).
Otherwise the value is the concatenation of """ (1 double quote), the value of the ·literal-value· accessor ""@" (1 double quote and a '@') and the value of the ·literal-language· accessor.
Finally, if ·literal-datatype· is not empty then append to the value calculated above "^^<" concatenated with the value of the ·literal-datatype· accessor concatenated with ">".
Note that the double-quoted literal-value string must use the N-Triples string escapes for escaping certain characters such as ".
These events are constructed by giving values for the ·literal-value·, ·literal-language· and ·literal-datatype· accessors.
Note: Literals beginning with a Unicode combining character are allowed however they may cause interoperability problems. See [CHARMOD] for further information.
To transform the Infoset into the sequence of events in document order, each information item is transformed as described above to generate a tree of events with accessors and values. Each element event is then replaced as described below to turn the tree of events into a sequence in document order.
The following notation is used for matching the sequence of events generated as described in Section 6 and describing the actions to perform for the matches. The RDF/XML grammar is defined here in terms of its data model events, using statements of the form:
number event-type event-content
action...
where the event-content is an expression, which may refer to other event-types (as defined in Section 6.1), using constructs of the form given in the following table. The number is used for reference purposes. The action may include generating new triples to the graph, written in N-Triples format.
General Notation | |
---|---|
Notation | Meaning |
event.accessor | The value of an event accessor. |
rdf: X |
A URI as defined in section 5.1. |
"ABC" | A string of characters A, B, C in order. |
Notation for Matching Events | |
Notation | Meaning |
A == B | A is equal to B. |
A != B | A is not equal to B. |
A | B | ... | The A, B, ... terms are alternatives. |
A - B | The term A but not the term B. |
anyURI. | Any legal URI. |
anyString. | Any string. |
list(item1, item2, ...); list() | An ordered list of events. An empty list. |
set(item1, item2, ...); set() | An unordered set of events. An empty set. |
* | Zero or more of preceding term. |
? | Zero or one of preceding term. |
+ | One or more of preceding term. |
root(acc1 == value1, acc2 == value2, ...) |
Match a Root Event with accessors. |
start-element(acc1 == value1, acc2 == value2, ...) children end-element() |
Match a sequence of Element Event with accessors, a possibly empty list of events as element content and an End Element Event. |
attribute(acc1 == value1, acc2 == value2, ...) |
Match an Attribute Event with accessors. |
text() | Match a Text Event. |
Notation for Grammar Actions | |
Notation | Meaning |
A := B | Assigns A the value B. |
concat(A, B, ..) | A string created by concatenating the terms in order. |
resolve(e, s) | A string created by interpreting s as a relative URI reference to the ·base-uri· accessor of ·Element Event· e as defined in Section 5.3 Resolving URIs. The resulting string represents an RDF URI Reference. |
generated-blank-node-id() | A string value for a new distinct generated Blank Node Identifiers as defined in section 5.2 Identifiers. |
event.accessor := value | Sets an event accessor to the given value. |
uri(identifier := value) | Create a new URI Reference Event. |
bnodeid(identifier := value) | Create a new Blank Node Identifier Event. |
literal(literal-value := string, literal-language := language, ...) |
Create a new Plain Literal Event. |
typed-literal(literal-value := string, literal-language := language, ...) |
Create a new Typed Literal Event. |
If the RDF/XML is a standalone XML document (known by having been given the RDF MIME Type) then the grammar starts with Root Event doc.
If the content is known to be RDF/XML by context, such as when RDF/XML is embedded inside other XML content, then the grammar can either start at Element Event RDF (only when an element is legal at that point in the XML) or at production nodeElementList (only when element content is legal, since this is a list of elements). For such embedded RDF/XML, the ·base-uri· value on the outermost element must be initialized from the containing XML since no Root Event will be available. Note that if such embedding occurs, the grammar may be entered several times but no state is expected to be preserved.
rdf:RDF
| rdf:ID
| rdf:about
| rdf:bagID
| rdf:parseType
| rdf:resource
| rdf:nodeID
| rdf:datatype
A subset of the syntax terms from the RDF Namespace in section 5.1 which are are used in RDF/XML.
coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:Description
| rdf:li
All the syntax terms from the RDF Namespace in section 5.1 which are used in the RDF/XML.
rdf:aboutEach
| rdf:aboutEachPrefix
These are the names from the RDF Namespace that have been withdrawn from the language. See the resolutions of the rdfms-aboutEach-on-object and rdfms-abouteachprefix issues for further information.
Error Test: Indicated by error001.rdf and error002.rdf
Note: The Working Group invites feedback from the community on the effects of the removal of these terms on existing implementations and documents and on the costs and benefits of adopting a new namespace URI to reflect this change (currently not proposed by the Working Group).
anyURI - ( coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:li
| oldTerms )
The RDF URI References that are allowed on node elements.
anyURI - ( coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:Description
| oldTerms )
The URIS that are allowed on property elements.
anyURI - ( coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:Description
| rdf:li
| oldTerms )
The RDF URI References that are allowed on property attributes.
root(document-element == RDF,
children == list(RDF))
start-element(URI == rdf:RDF
,
attributes == set())
nodeElementList
end-element()
ws* (nodeElement ws* )*
start-element(URI == nodeElementURIs
attributes == set((idAttr | nodeIdAttr | aboutAttr )?, bagIdAttr?, propertyAttr*))
propertyEltList
end-element()
For node element e, the processing of some of the attributes has to be done before other work such as dealing with children events or other attributes. These can be processed in any order:
rdf:ID
, then
e.subject := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value))).rdf:nodeID
, then
e.subject := bnodeid(identifier:=a.string-value).rdf:about
then
e.subject := uri(identifier := resolve(e, a.string-value)).If e.subject is empty, then e.subject := bnodeid(identifier := generated-blank-node-id()).
The following can then be performed in any order:
rdf:Description
then the following statement is added to the graph:
e.subject.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <e.URI> .
rdf:type
then the following statement is added to the graph:
e.subject.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <a.string-value> .
rdf:type
)
then o := literal(literal-value := a.string-value, literal-language := e.language)
and the following statement is added to the graph:
e.subject.string-value <a.URI> o.string-value .
If an attribute a with
a.URI == rdf:bagID
is present,
n := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value)))
then in any order:
S5 Add the following statement to the graph:
n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Bag> .
For the generated statements above (excluding S5) in the following order
If the statement was generated by S4 from a propertyElt and has an existing identifier e.subject then s := e.subject. Otherwise s := bnodeid(identifier := generated-blank-node-id())
Then reify the statement with event s using the reification rules in section 7.3 and apply the bag expansion rules in section 7.5 on event n to give a URI u. Then the following statement is added to the graph:
n.string-value <u> s.string-value .
A text event matching white space defined by [XML] definition White Space Rule [3] S in section Common Syntactic Constructs
ws* (propertyElt ws* ) *
If element e has
e.URI =
rdf:li
then apply the list expansion rules on element e.parent in
section 7.4
to give a new URI u and
e.URI := u.
NOTE: The action of this production must be done before the actions of any sub-matches (resourcePropertyElt ... emptyPropertyElt). Alternatively the result must be equivalent to as if it this action was performed first, such as performing as the first action of all of the sub-matches.
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?))
ws* nodeElement ws*
end-element()
For element e, and the single contained nodeElement n the following statement is added to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> n.subject.string-value .
If the rdf:ID
attribute a is given, the above
statement is reified with
i := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value)))
using the reification rules in
section 7.3
and e.subject := i
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?, datatypeAttr?))
text()
end-element()
Note: The empty literal case is defined in production emptyPropertyElt
For element e, and the text event t.
If the rdf:datatype
attribute d is given
then o := typed-literal(literal-value := t.string-value, literal-language := e.language, literal-datatype := a.string-value)
otherwise o := literal(literal-value := t.string-value, literal-language := e.language)
and the following statement is added to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> o.string-value .
If the rdf:ID
attribute a is given, the above
statement is reified with
i := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value)))
using the reification rules in
section 7.3
and e.subject := i.
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?, parseLiteral))
literal
end-element()
For element e and the literal l,
then o := typed-literal(literal-value := l.string-value, literal-language := e.language, literal-datatype := http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#XMLLiteral
)
and the following statement is added to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> o.string-value .
Test: Empty literal case indicated by test009.rdf and test009.nt
If the rdf:ID
attribute a is given, the above
statement is reified with
i := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value)))
using the reification rules in
section 7.3
and e.subject := i.
The result of a literal from
rdf:parseType="Literal"
content is an
XML Literal.
This specification allows some freedom to choose exactly what string is used as the lexical form of an XML Literal. Whatever string is used, it MUST correspond to an XML document when enclosed within a start and end element tag, and its canonicalization (without comments, as defined in Exclusive XML Canonicalization [XML-XC14N]) MUST be the same as the same canonicalization of the literal text l. It is often acceptable to use l without any changes but this is incorrect if, for example, l uses entity references or namespace prefixes defined in the outer XML document.
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?, parseResource))
propertyEltList
end-element()
For element e with possibly empty element content c.
n := bnodeid(identifier := generated-blank-node-id()).
Add the following statement to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> n.string-value .
Test: Indicated by test004.rdf and test004.nt
If the rdf:ID
attribute a is given, the
statement above is reified with
i := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value)))
using the reification rules in
section 7.3
and e.subject := i.
If the element content c is not an empty, then use event n to create a new sequence of events as follows:
start-element(URI := rdf:Description
,
subject := n,
attributes := set())
c
end-element()
Then process the resulting sequence using production nodeElement.
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?, parseCollection))
nodeElementList
end-element()
For element event e with possibly empty nodeElementList l. Set s:=list().
For each element event f in l, n := bnodeid(identifier := generated-blank-node-id()) and append n to s to give a sequence of events.
If s is not empty, n is the first event identifier in s and the following statement is added to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> n.string-value .
otherwise the following statement is added to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#nil> .
If the rdf:ID
attribute a is given, the above
statement is reified with
i := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", a.string-value)))
using the reification rules in
section 7.3.
If s is empty, no further work is performed.
For each event n in s, the following statement is added to the graph:
n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#List> .
For each event n in s and the corresponding element event f in l, the following statement is added to the graph:
n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#first> f.string-value .
For each consecutive, overlapping pairs of events (n, o) in s, the following statement is added to the graph:
n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#rest> o.string-value .
If s is not empty, n is the last event identifier in s, the following statement is added to the graph:
n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#rest> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#nil> .
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?, parseOther))
propertyEltList
end-element()
All rdf:parseType
attribute values other than the strings
"Resource", "Literal" or "Collection" are treated as if the value was
"Literal". This production matches and acts as if production
parseTypeLiteralPropertyElt
was matched.
No extra triples are generated for other rdf:parseType
values.
start-element(URI == propertyElementURIs ),
attributes == set(idAttr?, ( resourceAttr | nodeIdAttr )?, bagIdAttr?, propertyAttr*))
end-element()
If there are no attributes or only the
optional rdf:ID
attribute i
then o := literal(literal-value:="", literal-language := e.language)
and the following statement is added to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> o.string-value .
and then if i is given, the above statement is reified with uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", i.string-value))) using the reification rules in section 7.3.
Test: Indicated by test002.rdf and test002.nt
Test: Indicated by test005.rdf and test005.nt
Otherwise
rdf:resource
attribute i is present, then
r := uri(identifier := resolve(e, i.string-value))
rdf:nodeID
attribute i is present, then
r := bnodeid(identifier := i.string-value)
If optional rdf:bagID
attribute b is given,
n := uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", b.string-value)))
The following are done in any order:
Add the following statement to the graph:
e.parent.subject.string-value <e.URI> r.string-value .
and then if rdf:ID
attribute i is given, the above statement is
reified with
uri(identifier := resolve(e, concat("#", i.string-value)))
using the reification rules in
section 7.3.
For all propertyAttr attributes a (in any order)
If a.URI == rdf:type
then the following statement is added to the graph:
r.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <a.string-value> .
Otherwise o := literal(literal-value := a.string-value, literal-language := e.language) and the following statement is added to the graph:
r.string-value <a.URI> o.string-value .
If event n was created, then for each statement above: s := bnodeid(identifier := generated-blank-node-id()), reify the statement with event s using the reification rules in section 7.3, apply the bag expansion rules in section 7.5 on event n to give URI u and add the following statement is added to the graph:
n.string-value <u> s.string-value; .
Test: Indicated by test013.rdf and test013.nt
Test: Indicated by test014.rdf and test014.nt
If event n was created, add the following statement to the graph:
n.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Bag> .
attribute(URI == rdf:ID
,
string-value == rdf-id)
Constraint:: constraint-id
applies to the values of rdf:ID
attributes
attribute(URI == rdf:nodeID
,
string-value == rdf-id)
attribute(URI == rdf:about
,
string-value == URI-reference)
attribute(URI == rdf:bagID
,
string-value == rdf-id)
Constraint:: constraint-id
applies to the values of rdf:bagID
attributes
attribute(URI == propertyAttributeURIs,
string-value == anyString)
attribute(URI == rdf:resource
,
string-value == URI-reference)
attribute(URI == rdf:datatype
,
string-value == URI-reference)
attribute(URI == rdf:parseType
,
string-value == "Literal")
attribute(URI == rdf:parseType
,
string-value == "Resource")
attribute(URI == rdf:parseType
,
string-value == "Collection")
attribute(URI == rdf:parseType
,
string-value == anyString - ("Resource" | "Literal") )
An attribute ·string-value· interpreted as an RDF URI Reference.
Any XML element content that is allowed according to [XML] definition Content of Elements Rule [43] content. in section 3.1 Start-Tags, End-Tags, and Empty-Element Tags
An attribute ·string-value· matching any legal [XML-NS] token NCName
For the given event r and the statement with terms s, p and o corresponding to the N-Triples:
s p o .
add the following statements to the graph:
r.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#subject> s .
r.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#predicate> p .
r.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#object> o .
r.string-value <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Statement> .
For the given element e, create a new RDF URI Reference u := concat("http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#_", e.li-counter), increment the e.li-counter property by 1 and return u.
For the given element e, create a new RDF URI Reference u := concat("http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#_", e.bag-li-counter), increment the e.bag-li-counter property by 1 and return u.
There are some RDF Graphs as defined in the RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax Working Draft. that cannot be serialized in RDF/XML. These are those that:
A more detailed discussion of the issues of serializing the RDF Graph
to RDF/XML is given in [UNPARSING].
This describes using the original syntax without the subsequently
added rdf:nodeID
attribute that now allows all graphs
with blank nodes to be serialized.
If RDF/XML is embedded inside HTML or XHTML this can add many new elements and attributes, many of which will not be in the appropriate DTD. This causes validation against the DTD to fail. The obvious solution of changing or extending the DTD is not practical for most uses. This problem has been analyzed extensively by Sean B. Palmer in RDF in HTML: Approaches[RDF-IN-XHTML] and it concludes that there is no single embedding method that satisfies all applications and remains simple.
The recommended approach is to not embed RDF/XML in HTML/XHTML but
rather to use <link>
element in the <head>
element of the HTML/HTML to point at a separate RDF/XML document.
This has been used for several years by the
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
on its Web site.
To use this technique, the <link>
element
href
should point at the URI of the RDF/XML content
and the type
attribute should be used with the value of
"application/rdf+xml"
, the proposed MIME Type for
RDF/XML, see Section 4
The value of the rel
attribute may also be set to
indicate the relationship; this is an application dependent value.
The DCMI has used and recommended rel="meta"
when linking
in RFC 2731 - Encoding Dublin Core Metadata in HTML[RFC-2731] however
rel="alternative"
may also be appropriate.
See
HTML 4.01 link types
and
XHTML Modularization - LinkTypes
for further information.
The following people provided valuable contributions to the document:
This document is a product of extended deliberations by the RDF Core working group, whose members have included: Art Barstow (W3C) Dave Beckett (ILRT), Dan Brickley (W3C/ILRT), Dan Connolly (W3C), Jeremy Carroll (Hewlett Packard), Ron Daniel (Interwoven Inc), Bill dehOra (InterX), Jos De Roo (AGFA), Jan Grant (ILRT), Graham Klyne (Clearswift and Nine by Nine), Frank Manola (MITRE Corporation), Brian McBride (Hewlett Packard), Eric Miller (W3C), Stephen Petschulat (IBM), Patrick Stickler (Nokia), Aaron Swartz (HWG), Mike Dean (BBN Technologies / Verizon), R. V. Guha (Alpiri Inc), Pat Hayes (IHMC), Sergey Melnik (Stanford University), Martyn Horner (Profium Ltd).
This specification also draws upon an earlier RDF Model and Syntax document edited by Ora Lassilla and Ralph Swick, and RDF Schema edited by Dan Brickley and R. V. Guha. RDF and RDF Schema Working group members who contributed to this earlier work are: Nick Arnett (Verity), Tim Berners-Lee (W3C), Tim Bray (Textuality), Dan Brickley (ILRT / University of Bristol), Walter Chang (Adobe), Sailesh Chutani (Oracle), Dan Connolly (W3C), Ron Daniel (DATAFUSION), Charles Frankston (Microsoft), Patrick Gannon (CommerceNet), RV Guha (Epinions, previously of Netscape Communications), Tom Hill (Apple Computer), Arthur van Hoff (Marimba), Renato Iannella (DSTC), Sandeep Jain (Oracle), Kevin Jones, (InterMind), Emiko Kezuka (Digital Vision Laboratories), Joe Lapp (webMethods Inc.), Ora Lassila (Nokia Research Center), Andrew Layman (Microsoft), Ralph LeVan (OCLC), John McCarthy (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Chris McConnell (Microsoft), Murray Maloney (Grif), Michael Mealling (Network Solutions), Norbert Mikula (DataChannel), Eric Miller (OCLC), Jim Miller (W3C, emeritus), Frank Olken (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Jean Paoli (Microsoft), Sri Raghavan (Digital/Compaq), Lisa Rein (webMethods Inc.), Paul Resnick (University of Michigan), Bill Roberts (KnowledgeCite), Tsuyoshi Sakata (Digital Vision Laboratories), Bob Schloss (IBM), Leon Shklar (Pencom Web Works), David Singer (IBM), Wei (William) Song (SISU), Neel Sundaresan (IBM), Ralph Swick (W3C), Naohiko Uramoto (IBM), Charles Wicksteed (Reuters Ltd.), Misha Wolf (Reuters Ltd.), Lauren Wood (SoftQuad).
This appendix contains XML schemas for validating RDF/XML forms. These are example schemas for information only and are not part of this specification.
This is an example schema in RELAX NG Compact (for ease of reading) for RDF/XML. Applications can also use the RELAX NG XML version. These formats are described in RELAX NG ([RELAXNG]) and RELAX NG Compact ([RELAXNG-COMPACT]).
Note: The RNGC schema has been updated to attempt to match the grammar but this has not been checked or used to validate RDF/XML.
# # RELAX NG Compact Schema for RDF/XML Syntax # # This schema is for information only and NON-NORMATIVE # # It is based on one originally written by James Clark in # http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/2001JulSep/0248.html # and updated with later changes. # namespace local = "" namespace rdf = "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" datatypes xsd = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-datatypes" start = doc # I cannot seem to do this in RNGC so they are expanded in-line # coreSyntaxTerms = rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype # syntaxTerms = coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:Description | rdf:li # oldTerms = rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix # nodeElementURIs = * - ( coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:li | oldTerms ) # propertyElementURIs = * - ( coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:Description | oldTerms ) # propertyAttributeURIs = * - ( coreSyntaxTerms | rdf:Description | rdf:li | oldTerms ) doc = RDF RDF = element rdf:RDF { nodeElementList } nodeElementList = nodeElement* # Should be something like: # ws* , ( nodeElement , ws* )* # but RELAXNG does this by default, ignoring whitespace separating tags. nodeElement = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { (idAttr | nodeIdAttr | aboutAttr )?, bagIdAttr?, propertyAttr*, propertyEltList } # It is not possible to say "and not things # beginning with _ in the rdf: namespace" in RELAX NG. ws = " " # Not used in this RELAX NG schema; but should be any legal XML # whitespace defined by http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#NT-S propertyEltList = propertyElt* # Should be something like: # ws* , ( propertyElt , ws* )* # but RELAXNG does this by default, ignoring whitespace separating tags. propertyElt = resourcePropertyElt | literalPropertyElt | parseTypeLiteralPropertyElt | parseTypeResourcePropertyElt | parseTypeCollectionPropertyElt | parseTypeOtherPropertyElt | emptyPropertyElt resourcePropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, nodeElement } literalPropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, text } parseTypeLiteralPropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, parseLiteral, literal } parseTypeResourcePropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, parseResource, propertyEltList } parseTypeCollectionPropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, parseCollection, nodeElementList } parseTypeOtherPropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, parseOther, any } emptyPropertyElt = element * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { idAttr?, (resourceAttr | nodeIdAttr)?, bagIdAttr?, propertyAttr* } idAttr = attribute rdf:ID { IDsymbol } nodeIdAttr = attribute rdf:nodeID { IDsymbol } aboutAttr = attribute rdf:about { URI-reference } bagIdAttr = attribute rdf:bagID { IDsymbol } propertyAttr = attribute * - ( rdf:RDF | rdf:ID | rdf:about | rdf:bagID | rdf:parseType | rdf:resource | rdf:nodeID | rdf:datatype | rdf:li | rdf:Description | rdf:aboutEach | rdf:aboutEachPrefix ) { string } resourceAttr = attribute rdf:resource { URI-reference } datatypeAttr = attribute rdf:datatype { URI-reference } parseLiteral = attribute rdf:parseType { "Literal" } parseResource = attribute rdf:parseType { "Resource" } parseResource = attribute rdf:parseType { "Collection" } parseOther = attribute rdf:parseType { text } URI-reference = string literal = any IDsymbol = xsd:NMTOKEN any = mixed { element * { attribute * { text }*, any }* }
Changes since the 8 November 2002 working draft
(Newest at top)
rdf:nodeID
values and generated onesrdfs:XMLLiteral
with rdf:XMLLiteral
in
5.1 RDF Namespace,
7.2.1 parseTypeLiteralPropertyElt.
Previous changes are listed in the changes section of the previous 8 November 2002 working draft.