Re: Comments on this afternoon session on Turtle (ISSUE-12)

On 16/04/11 18:32, Lee Feigenbaum wrote:
> On 4/16/2011 11:26 AM, Richard Cyganiak wrote:
>> (Tagging this as ISSUE-12)
>>
>> On 14 Apr 2011, at 14:50, Antoine Zimmermann wrote:
>>> I don't want xs:string to be marked as archaic because if it is,
>>> then it means that I am not welcome to write something like:
>>>
>>> :passportNumber rdfs:range xs:string .
>>
>> Personally I don't mind xsd:string being used in range declarations
>> to indicate that the value has to be a plain literal without language
>> tag.
>
> What do you think should be the return of datatype("foo")? I'd like it
> to be xs:string.
>
>> The problem with xsd:string typed literals is that for authors, the
>> choice between "foo" and "foo"^^xsd:string is arbitrary, but those
>> who want to query the data or access it in an API need to know what
>> choice the author made. This is a constant source of usability
>> issues. Hence the desire to normalize both forms internally.
>
> Agreed. Note that either approach (normalizing to plain literals or to
> xs:string literals) would accomplish this.
>
> [snip]
>
>>> Still, I am in favour of simplifying things, so instead of doing
>>> nothing, I would rather have plain literals without language tag
>>> removed altogether and replaced by typed literals of type
>>> xs:string.
>>
>> I think it's important that the canonical form is "foo" rather than
>> "foo"^^xsd:string because writing the latter is awkward in all
>> syntaxes.
>
> I agree, but I don't think the syntax issue is a big deal. What I would
> propose is something like:
>
> + Eliminate (or make archaic or what not) plain literals from RDF
> abstract syntax.
>
> + Note that all plain literals ought to be interpreted as xs:string
> literals, in all syntaxes. In Turtle, this would mean that "foo" is a
> syntactic shortcut for "foo"^^xs:string, the same way that 14 is a
> shortcut for "14"^^xsd:integer.
>
> Basically, I'm motivated by:
>
> * datatype("foo") = xs:string

Just so we get the details sorted out:

datatype(simple literal) is already xsd:string in SPARQL 1.0

and

lang(typed literal) = ""

(I can't remember why it's not an error - Eric?)

> * ...retaining the ability to have properties with rdfs:range xs:string
> * ...retaining the ability to write "foo" in Turtle and Turtle-like
> syntaxes

This to me is as important as anything else.  "foo", "foo"^^xsd:string 
being the same (not just as an entailment as per xsd 1a/1b).

> * ...having "foo" match "foo"^^xs:string in SPARQL basic graph pattern
> matching

at the simple entailment level.  Canonicalizing on input is possible.

	Andy

>
> Lee
>
>> Best, Richard
>>
>

Received on Monday, 18 April 2011 10:25:24 UTC