XMLSchema==types and RDF==semantics

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Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:36:04 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <3BB268C1.B907814E@phc.net>
From: Richard Emberson <emberson@phc.net>
To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org

I've got basically a big contact relational database
with people and data about the people. The types of
the data are specified using XMLSchema. One of the
types in the system is, for example, a telephone. People
have phones at work and at home. Some phones
are mobile/cell phones. Some people have multiple
phones at the same location. etc. etc.
Its rather crazy to have phone subtypes for every
place a phone can be located - I would rather
have some way of specifying relationship semantics.
How do I tag the data records in the RDB with RDF
so that someone can, in XML, describe search
parameters and have, for example, an office
phone be found rather than a home phone?

data-record:
    id
    value : "234 2322"
    xmlshema_type_id -> phone
    rdf_ref -> {
        xmlSchema-type : phone
        locatedAt : home
        usedFor : communications
        ....
    }


What representation would one use in the
database if one had many, many entries
(low disk space usage/high performance)?
Since its an RDB the search would be in sql -
this stuff is in a RDB, I can not use
in-memory xpath code.

There are types and there are sematics.  I'd like
to use XMLSchema for types and RDF for semantics.
I can use XML for the 'wire' representation but
the issue is how do I map RDF to the RDB so that
I can use sql as the search language?

Thanks

Richard Emberson
remberson@yahoo.com

Received on Thursday, 27 September 2001 01:27:48 UTC