RDF to RDMS mappings with Protege

Yesterday we announced that Protege-2000, a 100% java, open source,
graphical knowledge-base system environment that we have developed, 
can now be used to create and edit rdf and rdf schema.  Since Protege can also
store and access classes and instances in any relational database (using JDBC)
it can also effectively be used as a mechanism to store RDF in databases. 
Protege can then also serve as a translator from RDF files to databases and 
from databases back to RDF files.  

Dan Brickley mentioned to me that the rdf-interest group might be interested in
the workings of the Protege object-to-relational mapping.  Since the matter has
come up several times in other contexts I have now generated a web page which
describes our approach, the rationale for it, and the limitations of the
approach.  This page can be found at: 

http://www.smi.stanford.edu/projects/protege/protege-2000/doc/design/jdbc_backend_design_rationale.html

It should be noted that our approach is an extremely pragmatic one driven by the
needs of our program and our areas of expertise and interest.  Nevertheless many
of the issues that we faced will need to be addressed by anyone working in this
area.  I hope that a discussion of our approach will be of interest to others.

Ray

Received on Thursday, 3 February 2000 21:01:47 UTC