Re: Error in RDF/XML Syntax Specification?

At 13:46 05/04/05 -0400, Dan Brickley wrote:


>New version: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/errata#rdf-syntax-grammar
>
>Incorporating Graham's qualifier, a typo fix from Pat Hayes, and a
>closing observation I could do with someone reviewing (tried to
>interpret Dave's IRC comment that this was really 2 issues...):
>[[
>Serialization of datatyped empty literals is not anticipated by the
>RDF/XML grammar.
>
>This is believed by several developers and former WG-members to be an
>omission in the grammar defined by the RDF/XML Syntax Specification: a
>bug was reported (and acknowledged by the editor), relating to the use
>of an rdf:datatype attribute on empty RDF properties. See the archived
>mailing list thread for technical details. In addition to the question
>of the RDF/XML grammar's syntactic completeness, note that this issue
>identifies a construct that occurs within RDF graphs that cannot be
>serialized in the RDF/XML syntax.
>]]
>
>Is that last claim right? Is there a difference btw between
>
><foo:prop rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string"
>         ></foo:prop>
>
>...versus:
>
>         <foo:prop rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string"/>
>
>...in terms of this issue and the grammar productions?

 From memory, I don't believe there's any difference at all.  So I think 
that while the final sentence is technically correct, I'm not sure what it 
adds to the problem description.  Otherwise, I think your text is fine as a 
description of the issue raised.

Secondly, having looked at the link Brian sent, specifically:
[[
For the third class of change, W3C requires:

    1. Review by the community to ensure the technical soundness of 
proposed corrections.
    2. Timely publication of the edited Recommendation, with corrections 
incorporated.

For the third class of change, the Working Group MUST either:

    1. Request that the Director issue a Call for Review of an Edited 
Recommendation, or
    2. Issue a Call for Review of Proposed Corrections that have not been 
incorporated into an edited draft (e.g., those listed on an errata page). 
After this review, the Director MAY announce that the proposed corrections 
are normative.

While the second approach is designed so that a Working Group can establish 
normative corrections quickly, it does not obviate the need to incorporate 
changes into an edited version of the Recommendation. In particular, when 
corrections are numerous or complex, integrating them into a single 
document is important for interoperability; readers might otherwise 
interpret the corrections differently.
]]
-- http://www.w3.org/2004/02/Process-20040205/process.html#rec-modify

It seems that if we have general consensus that this is an error in the 
current syntax spec, we really need a proposed amendment for community 
review, and maybe a new test case.  (Arjohn has already supplied the 
latter.)  I have not yet studied the actual grammar to decide an 
appropriate fix, and I suspect Dave will come up with one more quickly than 
anyone else.  When such is proposed, I'll try to incorporate it into my 
parser and report back the test results (based on Dave's Raptor test suite).

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
For email:
http://www.ninebynine.org/#Contact

Received on Wednesday, 6 April 2005 08:30:32 UTC