RE: rdf for object serialization

ReHi,

At 10:46 AM 3/1/00 +0000, Assini, Pasqualino wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm not sure I understand.
>
>What you have are two different properties that simply happen to be both
>called  'child'.

It is a matter of perspective:

Think of properties as roles: the child-role of Node is filled with a node,
the child-role of Person is filled with a person.
You want to be able to describe this in a schema.

>As they are different they should have two different URIs and be described
>separatly.

They are not different as roles.
I agree that it is also possible to introduce two different properties:
Node_child and Person_child.
However, this means basically, that i have to encode the domain of the
property in the property name. To reread it again i have to
analyse the property name - seems to be a bad idea for me.


>Why using 'facets'?

It resolves the properties vs. roles issue.

Vice versa: Having multiple (domain,range)-definitions is useful in
several circumstances, several people have asked
for this feature now and it was necessary to adapt a highly successful
modelling tool to RDF. So there is a demand.

Although they were some obligations against it, nobody has come up with
a *concrete* example were multiple (domain,range)-definitions really hurt.

So: where does it hurt? Why are multiple (domain,range)-definitions for
properties a bad idea? (*concrete example please*).

Thanks,
         Stefan



Example of multiple domain-range definitions:

  <rdfs:Property rdf:ID="child">
    <rdfutil:facets>
     <rdfutil:facetResource>
      <rdfutil:domain rdf:resource="#Node"/>
      <rdfutil:range rdf:resource="#Node"/>
     </rdfutil:facetResource>
    </rdfutil:facets>

    <rdfutil:facets>
     <rdfutil:facetResource>
      <rdfutil:domain rdf:resource="#Person"/>
      <rdfutil:range rdf:resource="#Person"/>
     </rdfutil:facetResource>
    </rdfutil:facets>

  </rdfs:Property>






>Thanks
>
>   titto
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stefan Decker [mailto:stefan@db.stanford.edu]
> > Sent: 29 February 2000 22:04
> > To: haustein@kimo.cs.uni-dortmund.de; www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: rdf for object serialization
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > this was indeed already discussed a few weeks ago.
> > See:
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/1999Dec/0113.html
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/1999Dec/0115.html
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/1999Dec/0147.html
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2000Jan/0020.html
> >
> > The discussion has not lead to a useful solution,  but i *needed* a
> > solution for this problem
> > for the Protege RDF-storage infrastructure.
> > So my solution was to use facets for properties in a
> > namespace "rdfutil"
> > (which is preliminary)
> > which allows to define multiple domains and ranges.
> > A property can have multiple "facetResources", which defines a set of
> > facets for the property separately.
> > In your example the property "child" would have two
> > "facetResources", one
> > for each domain.
> >
> > The documentation of the rdfutil-namespace is in preparation
> > (it contains
> > also cardinality-constraints etc., which
> > were also needed for the protege-RDF serialization.
> >
> > So the RDF-serialization of
> >
> > >class Person {
> > >   String name;
> > >   Person child;
> > >}
> > >
> > >class Node {
> > >   Object content;
> > >   Node child;
> > >}
> > is (i omitted "content" and "name")
> >
> >
> >   <?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>
> > <!-- Version Tue Feb 29 13:45:11 PST 2000 -->
> > <rdf:RDF
> >   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
> >   xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/PR-rdf-schema-19990303#"
> >   xmlns:rdfutil="http://www.w3.org/rdfutil#">
> >
> >   <rdfs:Class rdf:ID="#Node"/>
> >
> >   <rdfs:Class rdf:ID="#Person"/>
> >
> >   <rdfs:Property rdf:ID="child">
> >     <rdfutil:facets>
> >      <rdfutil:facetResource>
> >       <rdfutil:domain rdf:resource="#Node"/>
> >       <rdfutil:range rdf:resource="#Node"/>
> >      </rdfutil:facetResource>
> >     </rdfutil:facets>
> >
> >     <rdfutil:facets>
> >      <rdfutil:facetResource>
> >       <rdfutil:domain rdf:resource="#Person"/>
> >       <rdfutil:range rdf:resource="#Person"/>
> >      </rdfutil:facetResource>
> >     </rdfutil:facets>
> >
> >   </rdfs:Property>
> > <rdf:RDF>
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > -----------------
> >
> > Please note that the property definition can be split into
> > two separate
> > definitions, thus
> > the Java-classes can be serialized interdependently (this is
> > actually the
> > approach used in Protege).
> >
> >   <rdfs:Property rdf:ID="child">
> >     <rdfutil:facets>
> >      <rdfutil:facetResource>
> >       <rdfutil:domain rdf:resource="#Node"/>
> >       <rdfutil:range rdf:resource="#Node"/>
> >      </rdfutil:facetResource>
> >     </rdfutil:facets>
> >   </rdfs:Property>
> >
> >
> >
> >   <rdfs:Property rdf:ID="child">
> >     <rdfutil:facets>
> >      <rdfutil:facetResource>
> >       <rdfutil:domain rdf:resource="#Person"/>
> >       <rdfutil:range rdf:resource="#Person"/>
> >      </rdfutil:facetResource>
> >     </rdfutil:facets>
> >   </rdfs:Property>
> >
> >
> > Ciao,
> >
> >          Stefan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >Where serialzed instances should look like
> > >
> > ><rdf xmlns:rdf="..."
> > >      xmlns="..."
> > >
> > >   <Person rdf:about="....">
> > >      <name>Harry Hacker</name>
> > >      <child rdf:"ressurce="...."/>
> > >   </Person>
> > >
> > >   <Node rdf:about="....">
> > >      <content rdf:ressource="..."/>
> > >      <child rdf:ressource="..."/>
> > >   </Node>
> > ></rdf>
> > >
> > >
> > >AFAIK, that is not possible at all because in RDF the domain
> > >of a property is not part of the property
> > >name (in contrast to OOPL).
> > >
> > >So I could add the class name to the property name manually,
> > >but renaming child to Person-child and Node-child would
> > >look ugly in the RDF code and not meet the spirit of
> > >OOP. I could also use the RDF syntax for object
> > >serialization but ignore RDF schema.
> > >
> > >Does anybody have a good suggestions?
> > >
> > >Is there any special reason why the domain name is not part
> > >of the property name in RDF schema like in standard OOP?
> > >Or did I misread the specs? Is object serialization a
> > >relevant application of RDF?
> > >
> > >Best regards
> > >
> > >Stefan
> > >
> > >
> > >--
> > >Stefan Haustein
> > >University of Dortmund
> > >Computer Science VIII
> > >www-ai.cs.uni-dortmund.de
> >
> >

Received on Wednesday, 1 March 2000 13:52:03 UTC