[Nml-wg] References

[Freek Dijkstra]

On 20-09-2012 17:13, Jeroen van der Ham wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We've been discussing references, meaning things that are not defined
> locally, but you do want to provide additional information about
> them. For XML there has been a proposal to use id / idRef to denote
> something like that. Unfortunately it is not very easy to port that
> construct to RDF/OWL. The only way to express something like that in
> RDF/OWL is by using a relation. Fortunately a relation like that
> already exists in the form of rdfs:isDefinedBy. This states that an
> object is actually defined by another description, and conveniently
> provides the URL of that description to reference it.
> 
> Could we perhaps use the isDefinedBy construct also in XML to make
> the reference definition somewhat more explicit? This would really
> help keeping the difference between the two syntaxes at a minimum
> also.

A summary of the earlier discussion:

idRef is suppossed to be a shortcut for id + isReference True.

isReference is supposed to mean that the object was defined elsewhere,
like in another document/by another organisation (there was still a
discussion between Aaron and myself if 'elsewhere' may or may not
included 'elsewhere in the file --- thinking about it now, I would say
'in another Topology').

The distinction between isReference and isDefinedBy is that isReference
only tells the parser that it is defined elsewhere; isDefinedBy also
tells the parser where it is defined.

I have no preference. Based on Jeroen's proposal and the earlier
discussion, what it most useful?

Freek