I posted the response below to the XML-DEV list yesterday in response to
a question concerning XML and semantics. I recommended use of a
reference to an OWL class (or property of a class) via an attribute on
an element in an XML instance document that provides the necessary
semantics for the element (in this case, a person's full name).
Is this approach radical? New? Valuable? Outlandish? Comments welcome.
Joe
Joseph Chiusano
Associate
Booz Allen Hamilton
700 13th St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
O: 202-508-6514
C: 202-251-0731
Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Chiusano Joseph [mailto:chiusano_joseph@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 12:10 PM
To: Michael Kay; ludger goeke; xml-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] RE: description of the logical or semantic
structure
No, the tags in your markup are arbitrary strings. It's your
description of the markup "When I say Name, I mean personal name" that
conveys the semantics. There's arguably a default description "When I
use a tag that's an English word, I use it with the same meaning as
that English word", but that's still something that's external to the
XML document itself.
The tags have no meaning without an external explanation of their
intent and usage.
Not sure if anyone is doing this (or has thought about it), but it seems
to me that if one included a reference (URI) to an instance of an OWL
class (or property of a class) then that can be a step in the right
direction.
So perhaps one could have:
<Name owl-ref="www.someuri.com">Peter Smith</Name>
where "owl-ref" (attribute name simply chosen by me for this response)
refers to an OWL class/property that conveys that "This is the full name
of a Person".
Joe
Joseph Chiusano
Associate
Booz Allen Hamilton
700 13th St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
O: 202-508-6514
C: 202-251-0731
Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 7:51 AM
To: 'ludger goeke'; xml-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] RE: description of the logical or semantic
structure
<Person>
<Name>Peter Smith</Name>
<Age>56</Age>
</Person>
Does the markup describes the content for example "Peter
Smith" in a
semantic way, that means does it describes that the content "Peter
Smith" has the semantic of a name
No, the tags in your markup are arbitrary strings. It's your
description of the markup "When I say Name, I mean personal name" that
conveys the semantics. There's arguably a default description "When I
use a tag that's an English word, I use it with the same meaning as
that English word", but that's still something that's external to the
XML document itself.
The tags have no meaning without an external explanation of their
intent and usage.
Without that explanation, the above XML fragment could mean "Launch an
attack on Cuba NOW!".
Michael Kay
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