Re: rdf:RDF required

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 10:29:19 -0400
Mark Baker <distobj@acm.org> wrote:

> Thanks for the detailed response, Dave.
> 
> On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 06:16:25AM -0400, Dave Beckett wrote:
> > The correct reference is in 7.2.1 of RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)

Para 1 V1
> >   If the RDF/XML is a standalone XML document (known by having been
> >   given the RDF MIME Type) then the grammar starts with Root Event doc.

Para 1 V2
> >     If the RDF/XML is a standalone XML document (identified by
> >     presentation as an application/rdf+xml RDF MIME type object, or
> >     by some other means) then the grammar starts with Root Event doc.

The third thing:
> > What *context* means is really outside of a description of a document
> > format.  It could mean that the protocol that delivered the document
> > provided the RDF/XML mime type application/rdf+xml (being registered,
> > it is on its 3rd internet draft) or the file system maps ".rdf"
> > suffixed files to RDF/XML.
> 
> Hmm.  That last paragraph makes sense to me, but seems to
> contradict the first paragraph you quoted above (and the
> revised version), as it seems to imply that the media type
> does *not* provide sufficient context.  Am I misinterpreting
> something?

Para 1 V1 was considered insufficent since although an IMT would be good
enough for context, it was likely not all the ways that would be
sufficient so we added "or by some other means"
and "by presentation" which I guess is aluding to network stack layers.

I'm happy to say more but it is pretty hard to describe unknown
application-specific ways of making this clear.  It could be an
internal API, a protocol element, a single bit.  If you can suggest
something specific for para 1 V2, I'll look to adding it.

<snip/>

> > > Is there an upside to requiring it?
> > 
> > You really should have a single document element for an XML format.
> 
> I've heard that too, but I honestly don't know what it buys me.  On the
> contrary, sometimes it's quite valuable to not be so constrained, as
> XSLT demonstrates (though its use of media types in this respect, is
> horribly broken);

XSLT is a nice example of why since you can do things like this:
  http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl

  <?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.w3.org/2002/06/rdfs2html.xsl" type="application/xml"?>
 
<snip/>

Dave

Received on Friday, 29 August 2003 12:47:20 UTC