Partially defined concepts

• From: Ander Altuna/LABEIN <aaltuna@labein.es>
• Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 17:38:10 +0200
• To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
• Message-ID: <OF4A88165B.906CC6A4-ONC1256E90.0050571E@labein.es>

Hello, I have a question regarding how to use concepts but with some
defined properties within them.

To better explain the question. I have created the following schema where
the concept employee is defined:

      <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://example.org#employee"/>

      <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://example.org#name">
            <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://example.org#employee">
            <rdfs:range rdf:resource="&rdfs;Literal">
      </rdf:Property>

      <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://example.org#nationality">
            <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://example.org#employee">
            <rdfs:range rdf:resource="&rdfs;Literal">
      </rdf:Property>


Then a company decides to extend the schema and create two new kinds of
employee based on the previous class but with some concrete information
about them, that is their nationality.

      <rdf:description rdf:about="http://example.org#australian">
            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://example.org#employee"/>
            <rdf:type rdf:resource="&rdfs;Class"/>
            <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://example.org#employee"/>
            <example:nationality>australian</example:nationality>
      </rdf:description>

      <rdf:description rdf:about="http://example.org#basque">
            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://example.org#employee"/>
            <rdf:type rdf:resource="&rdfs;Class"/>
            <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://example.org#employee"/>
            <example:nationality>basque</example:nationality>
      </rdf:description>

And finally, some employees are created:

      <example:australian rdf:about="http://example.org#john" example:name
="john"/>
      <example:australian rdf:about="http://example.org#mark" example:name
="mark"/>

      <example:japanese rdf:about="http://example.org#josu" example:name
="josu"/>
      <example:japanese rdf:about="http://example.org#aitor" example:name
="aitor"/>


My question is wether this kind of concepts, in some sense similar to those
used in object oriented languages, are correct in rdf. Is there any mistake
on the schema? There could be any class being instance and also subclass of
the same class?

Thanks in advanced for your help,

Ander

Received on Monday, 10 May 2004 11:48:20 UTC