

Re: Problem with auto-generated fragment IDs for graph names

From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:01:28 -0600
Cc: Markus Lanthaler <markus.lanthaler@gmx.net>, 'Andy Seaborne' <andy.seaborne@epimorphics.com>, public-linked-json@w3.org, 'RDF-WG' <public-rdf-wg@w3.org>
Message-Id: <AF25B164-27B8-4539-BD6E-332BA76D6AC9@ihmc.us>
To: Eric Prud'hommeaux <eric@w3.org>

On Feb 18, 2013, at 12:07 PM, Eric Prud'hommeaux wrote:

> * Markus Lanthaler <markus.lanthaler@gmx.net> [2013-02-18 17:58+0100]
>> On Monday, February 18, 2013 5:17 PM, Andy Seaborne wrote:
>>> _:0x1234 {
>>>      x:assertions x:expressedAs x:triples .
>>>    }
>>> is a labelling of a graph (value).
>>> So there is some relationship (not here defined) to the graph and that
>>> is in the dataset structure.  In your previous message you talked about
>>> "navigate" and "bnode identifiers".  I understood your description as
>>> structural navigation of a datastructure from parsing.  Was that right?
>> Yes.
>>> You get would get from  _:0x1234 to the graph by looking in the dataset
>>> structure (which is a map) if bnodes were allowed.  At this level, of
>>> concrete graph structures, bnode label or a IRI string would serve the
>>> same purpose using e.g. relative URIs (and a per-parse random base URI
>>> making it only findable locally).  It's a local structural identifier.
>> Yes. Would that also be the case if bNodes would *not* denote the graph they
>> look up a graph labeled with a bNode ID in a dataset because you wouldn't
> mapping from label to graph?

No. It means that when the IRI is used in an RDF triple, what it refers to might not be what you get by following the label-to-graph mapping. 

> I believe we can factor out whether
> either case.
>> If you have the following dataset:
>> {
>> }
>> _:b1 {
>>  ... some triples ...
>> }
>> different?
> Operationally, I can't imagine this happening. I'm sure that every
> test case and every implementer will make sure that parsing that
> dataset as a Trig document or constructing it with SPARQL or RIF or
> SPIN or OWL will preserve "graph integrity".

? What do you mean by "graph integrity"? That sounds like some kind of syntactic condition, but the issue isn't anything to do with syntax. It isn't something that any kind of parser could possibly fix. 

> (Note that this "graph"
> is a superset of an RDF graph.)
> know what "denotes" means.

<knocks head repeatedly against wall>

A denotes B =
A refers to B (except we don't mean 'refer' as in "dereferencing a pointer") = 
A names B (except "name" as in "named graph" has been defined to mean something else) =
When you use A to talk about something, you are talking about B

Got it now, Eric? 

> The semantics that we're trying to avoid
> graph <foo>.

Are we? That is news to me. But this surely isn't the main issue here. 

>  (Some systems may make such a promise, but it's not
>    {
>      <b1> dc:author "Bob" .
>      <b2> dc:author "Bob" .
>      <b1> owl:sameAs <b2> .
>    }

How is this a problem? The IRIs in the first two triples have nothing to do with their use as graph labels immediately below. You could have written this:

>   {
>      <b1> dc:author "Bob" .
>      <b2> dc:author "Bob" .
>      <b1> owl:sameAs <b2> .
>    }
>    <c1> { ... some triples ... }
>    <c2> { ... some triples ... }

and it would have the same effective meaning. There is nothing in the RDF specs which could lead any reader of your example to know that b1 refers to a graph. 

> I suspect that saying
> would do the trick

Not really, since there is no idea in RDF of denoting something "in a dataset" or indeed "in" anything. That would require RDF to be some kind of context logic, where the same name can refer to one thing in one context and something else in a different context. RDF just isn't designed that way. 

Several people have suggested it should be. For example:

http://www.w3.org/2004/12/rules-ws/paper/98/ (1998)
http://www.ninebynine.org/RDFNotes/RDFContexts.html (2000)
http://www.slideshare.net/PatHayes/rdf-with-contexts (2012)

But the WG has not elected to take up this idea, so RDF right now does not have contexts. 

> , but again, I don't understand what drove us from
> "denotes" to "is paired with".

See previous comment. 


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Received on Tuesday, 19 February 2013 06:02:02 GMT
