This document is also available in this non-normative format: diff to previous version .
Copyright © 2009-2012 W3C ® ( MIT , ERCIM , Keio ), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability , trademark and document use rules apply.
This specification defines rules and guidelines for adapting the RDFa Core 1.1 and RDFa Lite 1.1 specifications for use in HTML5 and XHTML5. The rules defined in this specification not only apply to HTML5 documents in non-XML and XML mode, but also to HTML4 and XHTML documents interpreted through the HTML5 parsing rules.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This specification has been jointly developed by the RDFa Working Group and the HTML Working Group . The document was previously published via the HTML Working Group, but has since been transitioned to the newly rechartered RDFa Working Group. The re-publication as a First Public Working Draft should not imply that the specification is being re-worked heavily, but is being done as a result of W3C process requirements. The expectation is to have the document released as an official W3C Recommendation in 8-9 months from the publication date of this document. The specification is currently being published by the RDFa Working Group .
This specification is an extension to the HTML5 language. All normative content in the HTML5 specification, unless specifically overridden by this specification, is intended to be the basis for this specification.
A sample test harness is available for software developers. This set of tests is not intended to be exhaustive. A community-maintained website contains more information on further reading, developer tools, and software libraries that can be used to extract RDFa data from Web documents.
This
document
was
published
by
the
RDFa
Working
Group
as
a
First
Public
Working
Draft.
This
document
is
intended
to
become
a
W3C
Recommendation.
If
you
wish
to
make
comments
regarding
this
document,
please
send
them
to
public-rdfa-wg@w3.org
(
subscribe
,
archives
).
All
feedback
is
welcome.
Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy . W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy .
This section is non-normative.
Today's web is built predominantly for human readers. Even as machine-readable data begins to permeate the web, it is typically distributed in a separate file, with a separate format, and very limited correspondence between the human and machine versions. As a result, web browsers can provide only minimal assistance to humans in parsing and processing web pages: browsers only see presentation information. RDFa is intended to solve the problem of marking up machine-readable data in HTML documents. RDFa provides a set of HTML attributes to augment visual data with machine-readable hints. Using RDFa, authors may turn their existing human-visible text and links into machine-readable data without repeating content.
As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words must , must not , required , should , should not , recommended , may , and optional in this specification are to be interpreted as described in [ RFC2119 ].
There are two types of document conformance criteria for HTML documents containing RDFa semantics; HTML+RDFa and HTML+RDFa Lite .
The following conformance criteria apply to any HTML document including RDFa markup:
An example of a conforming HTML+RDFa document:
<html lang="en"> <head> <title>Example Document</title> </head> <body> <p>This website is <a href="http://example.org/">example.org</a>.</p> </body> </html>
Non-XML
mode
HTML+RDFa
1.1
documents
should
be
labeled
with
the
Internet
Media
Type
text/html
as
defined
in
section
12.1
of
the
HTML5
specification
[
HTML5
].
XML
mode
XHTML5+RDFa
1.1
documents
should
be
labeled
with
the
Internet
Media
Type
application/xhtml+xml
as
defined
in
section
12.3
of
the
HTML5
specification
[
HTML5
],
must
not
use
a
DOCTYPE
declaration
for
XHTML+RDFa
1.0
or
XHTML+RDFa
1.1,
and
should
not
use
the
version
attribute.
The RDFa Processor conformance criteria are listed below, all of which are mandatory:
A User Agent is considered to be a type of RDFa Processor when the User Agent stores or processes RDFa attributes and their values. The reason there are separate RDFa Processor Conformance and a User Agent Conformance sections is because one can be a valid HTML5 RDFa Processor but not a valid HTML5 User Agent (for example, by only providing a very small subset of rendering functionality).
The User Agent conformance criteria are listed below, all of which are mandatory:
The RDFa Core 1.1 [ RDFA-CORE ] specification is the base document on which this specification builds. RDFa Core 1.1 specifies the attributes and syntax, in Section 5: Attributes and Syntax , and processing model, in Section 7: Processing Model , for extracting RDF from a Web document. This section specifies changes to the attributes and processing model defined in RDFa Core 1.1 in order to support extracting RDF from HTML documents.
The requirements and rules, as specified in RDFa Core and further extended in this document, apply to all HTML5 documents. An RDFa Processor operating on both HTML and XHTML documents, specifically on their resulting DOMs or Infosets, must apply these processing rules for HTML4, HTML5 and XHTML5 serializations, DOMs and/or Infosets.
Documents conforming to the rules in this specification are processed according to [ RDFA-CORE ] with the following extensions:
http://www.w3.org/2011/rdfa-context/html-rdfa-1.1
,
which
must
be
applied
after
the
initial
context
for
[
RDFA-CORE
]
(
http://www.w3.org/2011/rdfa-context/rdfa-1.1
).
base
element.
For
XHTML5+RDFa
1.1
documents,
base
can
also
be
set
using
the
xml:base
attribute.
lang
or
xml:lang
attributes.
When
the
lang
attribute
and
the
xml:lang
attribute
are
specified
on
the
same
element,
the
xml:lang
attribute
takes
precedence.
When
both
lang
and
xml:lang
are
specified
on
the
same
element,
they
must
have
the
same
value.
application/xhtml+xml
Media
Type,
a
conforming
RDFa
Processor
must
look
at
the
value
of
the
DTD.
If
a
DTD
exists,
then
the
processing
rules
are:
<!DOCTYPE
html
PUBLIC
"-//
W3C
//DTD
XHTML+RDFa
1.0//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-rdfa-1.dtd">
,
or
<!DOCTYPE
html
PUBLIC
"-//
W3C
//DTD
XHTML+RDFa
1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-rdfa-2.dtd">
,
or
application/xhtml+xml
,
that
don't
contain
a
DTD,
and
don't
specify
a
version
attribute
must
be
interpreted
as
XHTML5+RDFa
1.1
documents.
datetime
attribute
must
be
utilized
when
generating
output,
overriding
any
value
expressed
using
the
content
attribute.
If
datetime
is
detected
and
the
value
of
the
attribute
is
a
valid
xsd:date
,
xsd:time
,
xsd:dateTime
,
xsd:date
xsd:duration
,
xsd:gYear
,
or
xsd:time
xsd:gYearMonth
,
then
a
triple
must
be
generated
where
the
current
property
value
is
the
datetime
attribute.
If
datatype
is
specified,
it
must
datatype
is
value
attribute
must
be
utilized
when
generating
output.
If
value
is
detected,
it
must
override
content
and
must
be
processed
according
to
the
rules
for
content
.
property
attribute
and
the
rel
and/or
rev
attribute
exists
on
the
same
element,
the
non-CURIE
and
non-URI
rel
and
rev
values
are
ignored.
If,
after
this,
the
value
of
rel
and/or
rev
becomes
empty,
then
the
processor
must
act
as
if
the
respective
attribute
is
not
present.
datatype
attribute
is
present
and
is
set
to
HTMLLiteral
in
the
vocabulary
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
,
do
the
following:
The
value
of
the
HTML
Literal
is
a
string
created
by
serializing
to
text,
all
nodes
that
are
descendants
of
the
current
element
,
i.e.,
not
including
the
element
itself,
and
giving
it
a
datatype
of
HTMLLiteral
in
the
vocabulary
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
.
In order to maintain maximum portability of this literal, any children of the current node that are elements must have the current prefix declarations (if any) declared on the serialized element. Since the child element node could also declare new prefixes, the RDFa Processor must be careful to merge these together when generating the serialized element definition. For avoidance of doubt, any re-declarations on the child node must take precedence over declarations that were active on the current node.
The
version
attribute
is
not
supported
in
HTML5
and
is
non-conforming.
However,
if
an
HTML+RDFa
document
contains
the
version
attribute
on
the
html
element,
a
conforming
RDFa
Processor
must
examine
the
value
of
this
attribute.
If
the
value
matches
that
of
a
defined
version
of
RDFa,
then
the
processing
rules
for
that
version
must
be
used.
If
the
value
does
not
match
a
defined
version,
or
there
is
no
version
attribute,
then
the
processing
rules
for
the
most
recent
version
of
RDFa
1.1
must
be
used.
RDFa's tree-based processing rules, outlined in Section 7.5: Sequence of the RDFa Core 1.1 specification [ RDFA-CORE ], allow an input document to be automatically corrected, cleaned-up, re-arranged, or modified in any way that is approved by the host language prior to processing. Element nesting issues in HTML documents should be corrected before the input document is translated into the DOM, a valid tree-based model, on which the RDFa processing rules will operate.
Any mechanism that generates a data structure equivalent to the HTML5 or XHTML5 DOM, such as the html5lib library, may be used as the mechanism to construct the tree-based model provided as input to the RDFa processing rules.
RDFa Core 1.1 allows for the current language to be specified by the Host Language. In order for RDFa Processors to conform to this specification, they must use the mechanism described in The lang and xml:lang attributes section of the [ HTML5 ] specification to determine the language of a node.
If
an
author
is
editing
an
HTML
fragment
and
is
unsure
of
the
final
encapsulating
MIME
type
for
his/her
markup,
it
is
suggested
that
the
author
specify
both
lang
and
xml:lang
where
the
value
in
both
attributes
is
exactly
the
same.
When generating literals of type XMLLiteral, the processor must ensure that the output XMLLiteral is a namespace well-formed XML fragment. A namespace well-formed XML fragment has the following properties:
xmlns
and
xmlns:
stored
in
the
RDFa
Processor's
current
evaluation
context
in
the
list
of
xmlns:PREFIX
must
be
transformed
to
all
lower-case
characters
when
preserving
the
value
in
the
XMLLiteral.
All
active
namespaces
declared
via
xmlns
and
xmlns:
must
be
placed
in
each
top-level
element
in
the
generated
XMLLiteral,
taking
care
to
not
overwrite
pre-existing
namespace
values.
An RDFa Processor that transforms the XML fragment must use the Coercing an HTML DOM into an Infoset algorithm, as specified in the HTML5 specification, followed by the algorithm defined in the Serializing XHTML Fragments section of the HTML5 specification. If an error or exception occurs at any point during the transformation, the triple containing the XMLLiteral must not be generated.
Transformation to a namespace well-formed XML fragment is required because an application that consumes XMLLiteral data expects that data to be a namespace well-formed XML fragment.
The
transformation
requirement
does
not
apply
to
input
data
that
are
text-only,
such
as
literals
that
contain
a
datatype
attribute
with
an
empty
value
(
""
),
or
input
data
that
that
contain
only
text
nodes.
An example transformation demonstrating the preservation of namespace values is provided below. The → symbol is used to denote that the line is a continuation of the previous line and is included purely for the purposes of readability:
<p xmlns:ex="http://example.org/vocab#" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"> Two rectangles (the example markup for them are stored in a triple): <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" property="ex:markup" datatype="rdf:XMLLiteral"> →<rect width="300" height="100" style="fill:rgb(0,0,255);stroke-width:1; stroke:rgb(0,0,0)"></rect> →<rect width="50" height="50" style="fill:rgb(255,0,0);stroke-width:2;stroke:rgb(0,0,0)"></rect></svg> </p>
The
markup
above
should
produce
the
following
triple,
which
preserves
the
xmlns
declaration
in
the
markup
by
injecting
the
xmlns
attribute
in
the
rect
elements:
<> <http://example.org/vocab#markup> "<rect xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" width=\"300\" →height=\"100\" style=\"fill:rgb(0,0,255);stroke-width:1; stroke:rgb(0,0,0)\"/> →<rect xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" width=\"50\" →height=\"50\" style=\"fill:rgb(255,0,0);stroke-width:2; →stroke:rgb(0,0,0)\"/>"^^http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#XMLLiteral .
Since
the
ex
and
rdf
namespaces
are
not
used
in
either
rect
element,
they
are
not
preserved
in
the
XMLLiteral.
Similarly, compound document elements that reside in different namespaces must have their namespaces declarations preserved:
<p xmlns:ex="http://example.org/vocab#"
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">
This is how you markup a user in FBML:
<span property="ex:markup" datatype="rdf:XMLLiteral">
→<p><fb:user uid="12345">The User</fb:user></p>
→</span>
</p>
The
markup
above
should
produce
the
following
triple,
which
preserves
the
fb
namespace
in
the
corresponding
triple:
<>
<http://example.org/vocab#markup>
"<p xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">
→<fb:user uid="12345">
→</p>"^^http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#XMLLiteral
.
There are a few attributes that are added as extensions to the HTML5 syntax in order to fully support RDFa:
vocab
,
typeof
,
property
,
resource
,
and
prefix
.
All
other
attributes
that
RDFa
may
process,
like
href
and
src
,
are
only
allowed
on
the
elements
defined
in
the
HTML5
specification.
vocab
,
typeof
,
property
,
resource
,
prefix
,
content
,
about
,
rel
,
rev
,
datatype
,
and
inlist
.
All
other
attributes
that
RDFa
may
process,
like
href
and
src
,
are
only
allowed
on
the
elements
defined
in
the
HTML5
specification.
link
or
meta
elements,
they
must
be
considered
flow
and
phrasing
content
if
used
outside
of
the
head
of
the
document.
If
the
RDFa
property
attribute
is
present
on
the
link
element,
the
rel
attribute
is
not
required.
RDFa
Core
1.1
deprecates
the
usage
of
xmlns:
in
RDFa
1.1
documents.
Web
page
authors
should
not
use
xmlns:
to
express
prefix
mappings
in
RDFa
1.1
documents.
Web
page
authors
should
use
the
prefix
attribute
to
specify
prefix
mappings.
However,
there
are
times
when
XHTML+RDFa
1.0
documents
are
served
by
web
servers
using
the
text/html
MIMEType.
In
these
instances,
the
HTML5
specification
asserts
that
the
document
is
processed
according
to
the
non-XML
mode
HTML5
processing
rules.
In
these
particular
cases,
it
is
important
that
the
prefixes
declared
via
xmlns:
are
preserved
for
the
RDFa
processors
to
ensure
backwards-compatibility
with
RDFa
1.0
documents.
The
following
sections
detail
the
backwards
compatibility
details
for
RDFa
processor
implementations.
xmlns:
-Prefixed
Attributes
The
RDFa
Core
1.1
[
RDFA-CORE
]
specification
effectively
deprecates
the
use
of
the
xmlns:
mechanism
to
declare
CURIE
prefix
mappings
in
favor
of
the
prefix
attribute.
While
utilizing
xmlns:
is
now
frowned
upon,
there
are
instances
where
it
is
unavoidable
-
such
as
publishing
legacy
documents
as
HTML5
or
supporting
older
XHTML+RDFa
1.0
documents
that
rely
on
the
xmlns:
attribute.
CURIE
prefix
mappings
specified
using
attributes
prepended
with
xmlns:
must
be
processed
using
the
algorithm
defined
in
section
4.4.1:
Extracting
IRI
mappings
URI
Mappings
from
Infosets
for
Infoset-based
processors,
or
section
4.5.1:
Extracting
IRI
mappings
URI
Mappings
from
DOMs
for
DOM
Level
2-based
processors.
For
CURIE
prefix
mappings
using
the
prefix
attribute,
Section
7.5:
Sequence
,
step
#4
must
be
used
to
process
namespace
values.
Since
CURIE
prefix
mappings
have
been
specified
using
xmlns:
,
and
since
HTML
attribute
names
are
case-insensitive,
CURIE
prefix
names
declared
using
the
xmlns:
attribute-name
pattern
xmlns:<PREFIX>="<URI>"
should
be
specified
using
only
lower-case
characters.
For
example,
the
text
"
xmlns:
"
and
the
text
in
"<PREFIX>"
should
be
lower-case
only.
This
is
to
ensure
that
prefix
mappings
are
interpreted
in
the
same
way
between
HTML
(case-insensitive
attribute
names)
and
XHTML
(case-sensitive
attribute
names)
document
types.
xmlns:
-Prefixed
Attributes
Since
RDFa
1.0
documents
may
contain
attributes
starting
with
xmlns:
to
specify
CURIE
prefixes,
any
attribute
starting
with
a
case-insensitive
match
on
the
text
string
"
xmlns:
"
must
be
preserved
in
the
DOM
or
other
tree-like
model
that
is
passed
to
the
RDFa
Processor.
For
documents
conforming
to
this
specification,
attributes
with
names
that
have
a
case
insensitive
prefix
matching
"
xmlns:
"
must
be
considered
conforming.
Conformance
checkers
must
should
accept
attribute
names
that
have
a
case
insensitive
prefix
matching
"
xmlns:
"
as
conforming.
Conformance
checkers
should
generate
warnings
noting
that
the
use
of
xmlns:
is
deprecated.
Conformance
checkers
may
report
the
use
of
xmlns:
as
an
error.
All
attributes
starting
with
a
case
insensitive
prefix
matching
"
xmlns:
"
must
conform
to
the
production
rules
outlined
in
Namespaces
in
XML
[
XML-NAMES11
],
Section
3:
Declaring
Namespaces
.
Documents
that
contain
xmlns:
attributes
that
do
not
conform
to
Namespaces
in
XML
must
not
be
accepted
as
conforming.
This section needs feedback from the user agent vendors to ensure that this feature does not conflict with user agent architecture and has no technical reason that it cannot be implemented.
RDFa
1.0
documents
may
contain
the
xmlns:
pattern
to
declare
prefix
mappings,
it
is
important
that
namespace
information
that
is
declared
in
non-XML
mode
HTML5
documents
are
mapped
to
an
Infoset
correctly.
In
order
to
ensure
this
mapping
is
performed
correctly,
the
"Coercing
an
HTML
DOM
into
an
infoset"
rules
defined
in
[
HTML5
]
must
be
extended
to
include
the
following
rule:
If
the
XML
API
is
namespace-aware,
the
tool
must
ensure
that
([
namespace
name
],
[
local
name
],
[
normalized
value
])
namespace
tuples
are
created
when
converting
the
non-XML
mode
DOM
into
an
Infoset.
Given
a
standard
xmlns:
definition,
xmlns:foo="http://example.org/bar#"
,
the
[namespace
name]
is
http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/
,
the
[local
name]
is
foo
,
and
the
[normalized
value]
is
http://example.org/bar#
,
thus
the
namespace
tuple
would
be
(
http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/
,
foo
,
http://example.org/bar#
).
For example, given the following input text:
<div xmlns:com="http://purl.org/commerce#">
The
div
element
above,
when
coerced
from
an
HTML
DOM
into
an
Infoset,
should
contain
an
attribute
in
the
[
namespace
attributes
]
list
with
a
[namespace
name]
set
to
"
http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/
",
a
[local
name]
set
to
com
,
and
a
[normalized
value]
of
"
http://purl.org/commerce#
".
While the intent of the RDFa processing instructions are to provide a set of rules that are as language and toolchain agnostic as possible, for the sake of clarity, detailed methods of extracting RDFa content from processors operating on an XML Information Set are provided below.
Extracting
IRI
mappings
URI
Mappings
declared
via
xmlns:
while
operating
from
within
an
Infoset-based
RDFa
processor
can
be
achieved
using
the
following
algorithm:
While processing an element as described in [ RDFA-CORE ], Section 7.5: Sequence , Step #2:
xmlns:
,
create
a
[
xmlns:
characters
removed
as
the
value
to
be
mapped,
and
the
[
normalized
value
]
as
the
value
to
map.
This step is unnecessary if the Infoset coercion rules preserve namespaces specified in non-XML mode.
For example, assume that the following markup is processed by an Infoset-based RDFa processor:
<div xmlns:audio="http://purl.org/media/audio#" ...
After
the
markup
is
processed,
there
should
exist
a
[IRI
[URI
mapping]
in
the
[local
list
of
IRI
URI
mappings]
that
contains
a
mapping
from
audio
to
http://purl.org/media/audio#
.
There are a number of non-prefixed attributes that are associated with RDFa Processing in HTML5. If an XML Information Set based RDFa processor is used to process these attributes, the following algorithm should be used to detect and extract the values of the attributes.
While processing Infoset Attribute Information Items in Element Information Items as described in [ RDFA-CORE ], Section 7.5: Sequence , Step #4 through Step #9:
This mechanism should be double-checked against all of the RDFa Javascript implementations to ensure correctness.
Most
DOM-aware
RDFa
Processors
are
capable
of
accessing
DOM
Level
1
[
DOM-LEVEL-1
]
methods
to
process
attributes
on
elements.
To
discover
all
xmlns:
-specified
CURIE
prefix
mappings,
the
Node.attributes
NamedNodeMap
can
be
iterated
over.
Each
Attr.name
that
starts
with
the
text
string
xmlns:
specifies
a
CURIE
prefix
mapping.
The
value
to
be
mapped
is
the
string
after
the
xmlns:
substring
in
the
Attr.name
variable
and
the
value
to
be
mapped
is
the
value
of
the
Attr.value
variable.
The intent of the RDFa processing instructions are to provide a set of rules that are as language and toolchain agnostic as possible. If a developer chooses to not use the DOM1 environment mechanism outlined in the previous paragraph, they may use the following DOM2 [ DOM-LEVEL-2-CORE ] environment mechanism.
Extracting
IRI
mappings
URI
Mappings
declared
via
xmlns:
while
operating
from
within
a
DOM
Level
2
based
RDFa
processor
can
be
achieved
using
the
following
algorithm:
While processing each DOM2 [ Element ] as described in [ RDFA-CORE ], Section 7.5: Sequence , Step #2:
xmlns
,
create
a
[
xmlns:
,
create
a
[
xmlns:
characters
removed
as
the
value
to
be
mapped,
and
the
[
Node.nodeValue
]
as
the
value
to
map.
This step is unnecessary if the XML and non-XML mode DOMs are namespace consistent.
For example, assume that the following markup is processed by a DOM2-based RDFa processor:
<div xmlns:com="http://purl.org/commerce#" ...
After
the
markup
is
processed,
there
should
exist
a
[IRI
[URI
mapping]
in
the
[local
list
of
IRI
URI
mappings]
that
contains
a
mapping
from
com
to
http://purl.org/commerce#
.
There are a number of non-prefixed attributes that are associated with RDFa processing in HTML5. If an DOM2-based RDFa processor is used to process these attributes, the following algorithm should be used to detect and extract the values of the attributes.
While processing an element as described in [ RDFA-CORE ], Section 5.5: Sequence , Step #4 through Step #9:
When
extracting
values
from
href
,
src
and
data
,
Web
authors
and
developers
should
note
that
certain
values
may
be
transformed
if
accessed
via
the
DOM
versus
a
non-DOM
processor.
The
rules
for
modification
of
URL
values
can
be
found
in
the
main
HTML5
specification
under
Section
2.6.2:
Parsing
URLs
.
This section is non-normative.
In early 2004, Mark Birbeck published a document named "RDF in XHTML" via the XHTML2 Working Group wherein he laid the groundwork for what would eventually become RDFa (The Resource Description Framework in Attributes).
In 2006, the work was co-sponsored by the Semantic Web Deployment Work Group, which began to formalize a technology to express semantic data in XHTML. This technology was successfully developed and reached consensus at the W3C , later published as an official W3C Recommendation. While HTML provides a mechanism to express the structure of a document (title, paragraphs, links), RDFa provides a mechanism to express the meaning in a document (people, places, events).
The document, titled "RDF in XHTML: Syntax and Processing" [XHTML-RDFA], defined a set of attributes and rules for processing those attributes that resulted in the output of machine-readable semantic data. While the document applied to XHTML, the attributes and rules were always intended to operate across any tree-based structure containing attributes on tree nodes (such as HTML4, SVG and ODF).
While RDFa was initially specified for use in XHTML, adoption by a number of large organizations on the Web spurred RDFa's use in non-XHTML languages. Its use in HTML4, before an official specification was developed for those languages, caused concern regarding document conformance.
Over the years, the members of the RDFa Task Force had discussed the possibility of applying the same attributes and processing rules outlined in the XHTML+RDFa specification to all HTML family documents. By design, the possibility of a unified semantic data expression mechanism between all HTML and XHTML family documents was squarely in the realm of possibility.
An RDFa Working Group was created in 2010 to address the issues concerning multiple language implementations of RDFa. The XHTML+RDFa document was split into a base specification, called RDFa Core 1.1 [ RDFA-CORE ], and thin specifications that layer above RDFa Core 1.1. The XHTML+RDFa 1.1 specification [ XHTML-RDFA ] is an example of such a thin specification. This document, also a thin specification, is targeted at HTML4, HTML5 and XHTML5.
This document describes the extensions to the RDFa Core 1.1 specification that permits the use of RDFa in all HTML family documents. By using the attributes and processing rules described in the RDFa Core 1.1 specification and heeding the minor changes in this document, authors can generate markup that produces the same semantic data output in HTML4, HTML5 and XHTML5.
This section is non-normative.
2009-10-15: First version of the RDFa for HTML4, HTML5 and XHTML5.
2010-03-04: Updated HTML5 coercion to Infoset rules, preservation of namespaces in Infoset and DOM2-based processors, clarifying how to extract RDFa attributes via Infoset, how to extract RDFa attributes via DOM2.
2010-05-02: Inheritance of basic processing rules from RDFa 1.1 [ RDFA-CORE ], instead of XHTML+RDFa 1.0 [ RDFA-SYNTAX ], inclusion of the HTML Default Vocabulary Terms, inclusion of a HTML 4.01 + RDFa 1.1 DTD for validation purposes.
2010-06-24: Inheritance of basic processing rules from RDFa 1.1 [ RDFA-CORE ], instead of XHTML+RDFa 1.0 [ RDFA-SYNTAX ], inclusion of the HTML Default Vocabulary Terms, added HTML 4.01 + RDFa 1.1 DTD for validation purposes, added normative definition of @version attribute.
2010-10-19: Removal of @version attribute, migrated HTML Vocabulary Terms to RDFa Profile document, added statement to send comments to the HTML WG bug tracker.
2011-01-11: Removed decentralized extensibility issue markers, added DOM Level 1 prefix mapping extraction algorithm.
2011-04-05: Moved all xmlns: rules into a section titled Backwards Compatibility and brought spec in-line with latest RDFa Core 1.1 spec.
2011-05-12: Generated Last Call document, no substatitive changes.
2011-12-30:
Addition
of
normative
dependency
for
RDFa
Lite
1.1.
Addition
of
rules
to
allow
meta
and
link
elements
in
flow
and
phrasing
content
as
long
as
they
contain
at
least
one
RDFa-specific
attribute.
Added
support
for
datetime
and
value
processing.
2012-03-10: Clarification of where each RDFa attribute is allowed to be used. Feature at risk warning for HTML4+RDFa DTD-based validation.
2012-09-10: Publishing control of the HTML+RDFa document is handed over from the HTML WG to the newly re-chartered RDFa WG. DTD-based validation is removed from the specification.
This section is non-normative.
At the time of publication, the members of the RDF Web Applications Working Group were:
Ivan Herman (staff contact), Shane McCarron, Gregg Kellogg, Niklas Lindström, Steven Pemberton, Manu Sporny (chair), Ted Thibodeau, and Stéphane Corlosquet.
At the time of publication, the members of the HTML Working Group were:
Colin Aarts, Miller Abel, D.R.Imanuel Abromeit, Robert Accettura, Chris Adams, Ben Adida, Arihant Agarwal, yael aharon, Jim Allan, Kazuyuki Ashimura, Tab Atkins Jr., Stephen Axthelm, Mark Baker, Christopher Bank, Bogdan Baraszkiewicz, Gary Barber, David Baron, Adam Barth, Aaron Bassett, Adrian Bateman, Matthias Bauer, Johannes Behr, John-Mark Bell, Robin Berjon, Arve Bersvendsen, Levent Besik, David Bills, Mark Birbeck, David Bolter, Anders Bondehagen, Marco Bonetti, Glenn Bookout, Sierk Bornemann, Denis Boudreau, Ben Boyle, River Brandon, Judy Brewer, Dan Brickley, Per-Erik Brodin, Thomas Broyer, Don Brutzman, Craig Buckler, Dick Bulterman, Daniel Burnett, Noel Bush, Andrew Buzzell, Craig Cadwallader, Sally Cain, Ben Caldwell, Brian Campbell, Carlos Cardona, Maurice Carey, Eric Carlson, Laura Carlson, Gavin Carothers, Wayne Carr, Tomas Caspers, James Cassell, Tantek Çelik, Namachivayam Chelladurai, David Child, Wendy Chisholm, David Choi, wu chou, Edward Cianci, Michaeljohn Clement, Richard Conyard, Michael Cooper, Paul Cotton (chair), Chris Cressman, Brendan Cullen, Joseph D'Andrea, Mohammed DADAS, Deborah Dahl, Erik Dahlström, David Dailey, Will Daniels, Ivan De Marino, Tommaso Donnarumma, Chris Double, John Drinkwater, Marc Drumm, Mark DuBois, Karl Dubost, Andrew Duck, Clair Dunn, Henrik Dvergsdal, Dean Edridge, Anand Samuel Edwin, Eric Eggert, S Emerson, Ivan Enderlin, Rob Ennals, Jean-Pierre EVAIN, Steve Faulkner, Andrew Fedoniouk, Alexey Feldgendler, Alejandro Fernandez, Ian Fette, Roy Fielding, Markus Fischer, David Fisher, Nick Fitzsimons, Mark Foladare, John Foliot, Kelly Ford, Jason Fowler, Geoff Freed, Matthew Freels, Steve Gabrio, Mike Ganner, Patrick Garies, Olivier Gendrin, Giovanni Gentili, Dragos Georgita, Dimitri Glazkov, Daniel Glazman, Eliot Graff, James Graham, Aryeh Gregor, Chris Griego, Jonathan Griffin, Guillaume Guérin, Jon Gunderson, Lars Gunther, Raghavan Gurumurthy, Markku Hakkinen, Marcin Hanclik, Matt Harris, Chris Hay, Sean Hayes, Ian Hickson, Thomas Higginbotham, Krijn Hoetmer, Laurens Holst, Mikko Honkala, Tobias Horvath, Peter Howkins, Raul Hudea, Dale Hudjik, Jon Hughes, Lachlan Hunt, David Hyatt, David Håsäther, Eihab Ibrahim, Kunter Ilalan, Toby Inkster, Patrick D F Ion, Erik Isaksen, Richard Ishida, Moto Ishizawa, Yudai Iwasaki, Dean Jackson, Justin James, Arthur Jennings, Arne Johannessen, Kenny Johar, Sam Johnston, Sam Johnston, Doug Jones, Wilhelm Joys Andersen, Philip Jägenstedt, Susanne Jäger, Yehuda Katz, Jeremy Keith, Serge K. Keller, John Kemp, Kazuhito Kidachi, Don Kiely, Dowan Kim, Sebastian Kippe, Martin Kliehm, Egor Kloos, Graham Klyne, Justin Anthony Knapp, Masatomo Kobayashi, Marcel Koeppen, Jirka Kosek, Anssi Kostiainen, Lee Kowalkowski, Michael Kozakewich, Maxim Kozhuh, Peter Krantz, Keith Krieger, Kris Krueger, Mayank Kumar, Michael Köller, Jonatan Lander, Lucas Larson, Bruce Lawson, Josh Lawton, Nicolas LE GALL, Chasen Le Hara, Philippe Le Hégaret, Jane Lee, Kangchan Lee, WonSuk Lee, Niels Leenheer, Dean Leigh, Travis Leithead, Gez Lemon, Kornel Lesinski, aurélien levy, Scott Lewis, Li Li, Danny Liang, Jake Liddell, Håkon Wium Lie, Jedi Lin, Andy Lintner, Feng Liu, Jianjun Liu, Robert Love, Guillaume Ludwig, Andrew Maben, Shefik Macauley, Matthew MacKenzie, Krzysztof Maczynski, Vilem Malek, Murray Maloney, Jatinder Mann, Gabriel Mansour, Zhihong Mao, Bilgehan Maras, Chris Marrin, Robert Marshall, Andrew Martin, Alfonso Martínez de Lizarrondo, Luca Mascaro, Larry Masinter, Bill Mason, Matthew May, Cena Mayo, Charles McCathieNevile, Cameron McCormack, Martin McEvoy, Benjamin Meadowcroft, Shawn Medero, Reinier Meenhorst, Jens Meiert, Jakob Melander, Markus Mielke, Ben Millard, Mark Miller, Ryan Mitchell, Katsuhiko Momoi, Stefan More, Terry Morris, Thomas Morris, Daniel Morrison, Simon Myers, Stuart Myles, Marco Neumann, Sharon Newman, Tom Nguyen, Andrey Nikanorov, Jer Noble, Andrew Norman, Joshue O Connor, Robert O'Callahan, Edward O'Connor, Matt Obee, Frank Olivier, Ryan Orr, Debi Orton, Kulanthaivel Palanichamy, Frank Palinkas, Soohong Daniel Park, Sylvain Pasche, Chris Pearce, Brian Peppler, Ariel Pérez, Adele Peterson, Silvia Pfeiffer, Simon Pieters, Benoit Piette, Thomas Pike, Gabriel Pizzorno, Andrew Polk, Andrei Polushin, Pasquale Popolizio, Harri Porten, Alexey Proskuryakov, Michael Puls II, Juan Quemada, T.V. Raman, Andrew Ramsden, Arun Ranganathan, Marco Ranon, Matthew Ratzloff, Matthew Raymond, Ron Reisor, Daniel Renfer, Julian Reschke, Cyra Richardson, Ole Riesenberg, Anders Ringqvist, Adam Roben, Alex Robinson, Jude Robinson, Leonard Rosenthol, Gregory Rosmaita, Tony Ross, Steven Roussey, Sam Ruby (chair), Pietro Russo, Weston Ruter, Monikandan S, Lucas Sa, Rene Saarsoo, Sajid Saiyed, Janina Sajka, joaquin Salvachua, satish sangaru, Samuel Santos, Sorin Sbarnea, Daniel Schattenkirchner, Doug Schepers, Kai Scheppe, Christian Schmidt, Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer, Christopher Schroeder, Richard Schwerdtfeger, Gavin Sharp, Cynthia Shelly, Jonas Sicking, Andrew Sidwell, Leif Halvard Silli, David Singer, Henri Sivonen, Brian Skahan, Kenneth Sklander, Dan Smith, Dylan Smith, Michael(tm) Smith (staff contact), Geoffrey Sneddon, Gnanasekar S Somanathan, Manu Sporny, Elliott Sprehn, Maciej Stachowiak (chair), Vicki Stanton, Hallvord Steen, Johnny Stenback, Robert Stern, Peter Stewart, Stephen Stewart, Andrew Stibbard, Bruce Stockwell, Motti Strom, Oli Studholme, Mihai Sucan, Bryan Sullivan, Marat Tanalin, Mike Taylor, Philip Taylor, Sander Tekelenburg, Shane Thacker, Nik Thierry, Morten Tollefsen, Dominik Tomaszuk, Dzung Tran, Monika Trebo, Mark Turnage, Jason Turnbull, Scott Turner, Michael Turnwall, Matthew Turvey, Asbjørn Ulsberg, Wesley Upchurch, Ojan Vafai, Erik van Kempen, Anne van Kesteren, Sander van Lambalgen, Charl van Niekerk, Tim van Oostrom, Christopher Varley, Jean-Charles Verdié, John Vernaleo, Scott Vesey, Sigbjørn Vik, Laurent Vilday, Kent Villard, Jace Voracek, David Voth, Vladimir Vukicevic, Johnson Wang, Martijn Wargers, Jonathan Watt, Kyle Weems, Samuel Weinig, Ian Wessman, Ben West, Jason White, Michael Whitley, Joe Williams, Andrew Wilson, Chris Wilson, Doug Wright, Han Xu, Mateo Yadarola, Masataka Yakura, Channy Yun, Michael Zajac, Boris Zbarsky, Milan Zoufal, Michael zur Muehlen