Trouble of understanding production [6.12]

While building up the latest release of SiRPAC [1], out as of today 13-Jan-99,
I spent quite a bit of time trying to understand how the production rule [6.12]
of the latest RDF M&S spec [2] really works.

Quote from the spec (almost at the end of Section 6):

"Properties and values expressed in XML attribute form by productions [6.10]
and [6.12] are
equivalent to the same properties and values expressed as XML content of a
single Description
element D where the referent of D is the value of the property named by the XML
element
according to productions [6.17], [6.2], and [6.3]. "

To my opinion, without an example it is very difficult to understand
what it implies. I suggest some additional wording is to be introduced to
the spec or even an example such as follows:

<rdf:Description about="foo">
  <s:Creator rdf:resource="http://www.some.org" s:language="en" />
</rdf:Description>

corresponds with

<rdf:Description about="foo">
  <s:Creator>
    <rdf:Description about="http://www.some.org">
      <s:language>en</s:language>
    </rdf:Description>
  </s:Creator>
</rdf:Description>

Hopefully I got it right.

A suggestion for the wording:

"Properties and values expressed in XML attribute form in empty element E
by productions ... are equivalent to the same properties and values
expressed as elements in the content of a single Description element D.
D will become content of the element E. The referent of D - the value of the
about attribute - is either the value of rdf:resource if present, or rdf:ID
if present, or a system-generated new identifier."

Regards,
Janne

[1] http://www.w3.org/RDF/Implementations/SiRPAC/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/PR-rdf-syntax-19990105/#propertyElt
--
Janne Saarela           | Visiting scientist
Email: jsaarela@w3.org  | World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/

Received on Wednesday, 13 January 1999 10:53:03 UTC