lang tags in XML literals

The purpose of this message is to identify whether a proposed change to
the RDFCore specs will cause existing implementations or users of RDF
unacceptable grief.

As a result of last call feedback, RDFCore have decided to make a change
to the way that xml literals work.  In the last call WD's an inscope
lang tag affected the value of an xml literal, in e.g.

<rdf:Description xml:lang="en" rdf:parseType="Literal">
  <dc:title>One <em>flew</em> Over the Cukoo&apos;s Nest</dc:title>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description xml:lang="fr">
  <dc:title>One <em>flew</em> Over the Cukoo&apos;s Nest</dc:title>
</rdf:Description>

the two statements have *different* objects, because one is English and
the other is French.

For a variety of complex reasons I don't want to go into here, this
design caused considerable technical difficulty, and thus RDFCore have
decided to modify it so that an inscope lang tag does not affect the
value of an xml literal.

In making this decision the WG took the representation of text as the
design centre for xml literal and noted that if language is important to
the value, then it can be incorporated in the body of the literal:

<rdf:Description xml:lang="en" rdf:parseType="Literal">
  <dc:title><span xml:lang="en">One <em>flew</em> Over the Cukoo&apos;s
Nest</span></dc:title>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description xml:lang="fr">
  <dc:title><span xml:lang="fr">One <em>flew</em> Over the Cukoo&apos;s
Nest</span></dc:title>
</rdf:Description>

I won't pretend that this was an easy decision, or that we particularly
like the solution, but it seemed to the WG to be the best tradeoff. 
This is a decision with which the I18N WG disagree.

Returning to my purpose, then.  If you know of existing data or
applications that will be unacceptably adversely affected by this
change, please send email to www-rdf-comments@w3.org to let the WG know.

Brian

Received on Tuesday, 15 July 2003 13:35:49 UTC