Resource Description Framework

What is the Resource Description Framework?

• A standard data model for the ontology
• A knowledge representation language
• A family of data formats and notations
A standard data model
Recall that the RDF uses subject-predicate-object triples as
its standard representation:

edited by
RDF Semantics Pat Hayes

subject predicate object

This data model is independent of the syntax used to express

(serialise) those triples.
A knowledge representation language
RDF is used as the foundation for the other knowledge
representation and ontology languages on the Semantic Web

User Interface and Applications

Trust
Proof
OWL Rules

Encryption
SPARQL

Signature
(queries) RDF Schema
RDF
XML + Namespaces
URI Unicode
A family of data formats
• RDF/XML is the normative (standard) syntax
– Supported by almost all tools
• RDF/N3 (Notation3) is also widely used
– Non-XML syntax
– Variable tool support
– Primarily designed to be easy to write on whiteboards
• Other XML and non-XML syntaxes exist:
– Turtle, NTriples, TriX etc
RDF Requirements
RDF requirements
• A means for identifying objects and vocabulary terms (URIs)
• A means for distinguishing between terms from different
vocabularies (XML namespaces and qualified names)
• A means for serialising triples (XML)
URIs and URIrefs
Standard identifiers for the ontology
Uniform Resource Identifiers are defined by RFC2396
– http://example.org/
– urn:isbn:0198537379
– mailto:nmg@ecs.soton.ac.uk
• URI references (URIrefs) are URIs with optional fragment
identifiers
– http://example.org/index.html#Introduction
– http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type
XML namespaces and qualified names
• RDF uses XML namespaces to refer to elements of domain
vocabularies
xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-
ns#”
namespace abbreviation namespace URI prefix
• Namespaces used to abbreviate URIrefs to qualified names
(QNames)
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type
becomes
rdf:type
• QNames cannot be used in attribute values in RDF/XML
– Use the URIref instead
RDF/XML
RDF/XML
RDF/XML is an XML-based format for expressing a collection
of RDF triples (an RDF graph)
• Can be parsed by an XML parser to give an XML data model
(Document Object Model, XML Infoset)
• Can be parsed by an RDF parser to give an RDF data model
(an RDF graph)
The anatomy of an RDF/XML file

XML declaration
RDF
Other
Tripledocument
namespace
subject
predicate
object
namespace element
declaration
declarations
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.sciam.com/”>
<dc:title>
<dc:title>Scientific American</dc:title>
</dc:title>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

http://www.sciam.com/ Scientific American

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
The anatomy of an RDF/XML file
• Resource-valued predicates use the rdf:resource attribute

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator rdf:resource=“mailto:john@example.org”/>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

http://www.example.org/ mailto:john@example.org

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator
The anatomy of an RDF/XML file
• We can have multiple rdf:Description elements within an
rdf:RDF element
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:title>Example Inc. Homepage</dc:title>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator rdf:resource=“mailto:john@example.org”/>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator
mailto:john@example.org
http://www.example.org/

Example Inc. Homepage

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
The anatomy of an RDF/XML file
• We can have multiple predicates within an rdf:Description
element
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:title>Example Inc. Homepage</dc:title>
<dc:creator rdf:resource=“mailto:john@example.org”/>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator
mailto:john@example.org
http://www.example.org/

Example Inc. Homepage

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
Abbreviated forms – class membership
• Replace rdf:Description with QName of class

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<ex:Website rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”/>
</rdf:RDF>

rdf:type
http://www.example.org/ ex:Website
RDF/XML striped syntax
• Consider the following graph:

http://www.example.org/

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator

mailto:john@example.org

http://example.org/ontology#name

John Smith
RDF/XML striped syntax
• Graph could be serialised using two rdf:Description elements

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator rdf:resource=“mailto:john@example.org”/>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“mailto:john@example.org”>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
RDF/XML striped syntax
• Alternatively, the second statement could be inserted within
the predicate element of the first
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“mailto:john@example.org”>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
RDF/XML striped syntax
• The syntax is striped because property and class elements
are nested alternately
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“mailto:john@example.org”>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
Class membership
• An object’s membership of a class is indicated using the
rdf:type property
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<rdf:type rdf:resource=“http://example.org/ontology#Website”/>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

rdf:type
http://www.example.org/ ex:Website
Common RDF/XML idioms
• XML entities are defined for the XML namespace URI prefixes
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<!DOCTYPE rdf:RDF [
<!ENTITY rdf ‘http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#’>
<!ENTITY dc ‘http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/’>
<!ENTITY ex ‘http://example.org/ontology#’>
]>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“&rdf;”
xmlns:dc=“&dc;”
xmlns:ex=“&ex;”>

• Used to abbreviate long URIrefs in attribute values (because QNames

can’t be used there)
Common RDF idioms
• Assertions about the null URIref are about the RDF file itself

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“”>
<dc:creator rdf:resource=“mailto:nmg@ecs.soton.ac.uk”/>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
Blank nodes (bNodes)
• Sometimes we have resources which we do not wish to
identify with a URI
• These are blank nodes or anonymous resources

http://www.example.org/

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator

http://example.org/ontology#name

John Smith
Blank nodes (bNodes)
• The striped syntax simplifies the RDF/XML serialisation –
remove the rdf:about attribute

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Description>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
Blank nodes (bNodes)
• The striped syntax is not sufficient to represent all graphs
containing blank nodes unambiguously

dc:creator
http://www.example.org/

John Smith
ex:name
http://test.example.org/
dc:creator
Blank nodes (bNodes)
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Description>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://test.example.org/”>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Description>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
Blank nodes and node IDs
• Ambiguities resulting from blank nodes are resolved by using
node IDs
• Node IDs are identifiers which are local to a given
serialisation of an RDF graph
– Node IDs may not be referred to from outside the scope of the
defining graph
• Node IDs are not guaranteed to remain unchanged when an
RDF file is parsed and serialised
– The identifier strings may change
– but
– The graph structure will remain unchanged
Blank nodes and node IDs
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:creator rdf:nodeID=“foo23”/>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://test.example.org/”>
<dc:creator rdf:nodeID=“foo23”/>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID=“foo23”>
<ex:name>John Smith</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
rdf:about versus rdf:ID
• So far, we have used the rdf:about attribute to specify the subjects of triples

– rdf:about takes a URIref as a value

• rdf:ID can be used to declare a new URIref within a document

– Within the file http://www.example.org/ontology

<rdf:Description rdf:ID=“JohnSmith”>

declares a new URIref http://www.example.org/ontology#JohnSmith

– Analogous to the name and id attributes in HTML
– Relative to xml:base attribute
Datatypes
• Literal values presented so far are plain and do not have a
type
– Many applications need to be able to distinguish between different
typed literals
• RDF uses XML Schema datatypes

<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<dc:date
rdf:datatype=“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#date”>2003-05-23</dc:date>
</rdf:Description>
Multilingual support
• In addition to typed literals, RDF also provides support for language
annotations on literals

• RDF uses XML’s multilingual support

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:dc=“http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/foreword”>
<dc:title xml:lang=“en”>Foreword</dc:title>
<dc:title xml:lang=“fr”>Avant-propos</dc:title>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

• Languages identified by ISO369 two letter codes

Containers
• RDF provides means for describing groups of objects
• Membership in the group is denoted by the ordinal
properties rdf:_1, rdf:_2, etc

rdf:Bag
mailto:john@example.org
rdf:type rdf:_1

rdf:_2
http://www.example.org/ mailto:bill@example.org
ex:members
rdf:_3
mailto:sally@example.org
Containers
• Three types of container are available in RDF
– rdf:Bag – an unordered group, possibly with duplicates
– rdf:Seq – an ordered group
– rdf:Alt – a group of alternatives (translations, media types, etc)
Containers
• Special syntax for expressing collections
– rdf:li is a convenience element which is replaced with ordinal
elements by RDF parsers
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<ex:members>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li rdf:resource=“mailto:john@example.org”/>
<rdf:li rdf:resource=“mailto:bill@example.org”/>
<rdf:li rdf:resource=“mailto:sally@example.org”/>
</rdf:Bag>
</ex:members>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
Collections
• Collections are a different way of expressing ordered groups
in RDF
– Containers are mutable – a third party could add new members to a
container
– Collections are immutable – cannot be altered without rendering the
collection ill-formed

• Similar to cons/car/cdr lists in Lisp

Collections

rdf:Lis
t
ex:members rdf:type
rdf:first
http://www.example.org/ mailto:john@example.org
rdf:rest
rdf:first
mailto:bill@example.org
rdf:rest
rdf:first
mailto:sally@example.org
rdf:rest

rdf:nil
Collections
• As before, special syntax for expressing collections
– rdf:parseType indicates special parse rules for an element

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=“http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
xmlns:ex=“http://example.org/ontology#”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“http://www.example.org/”>
<ex:members rdf:parseType=“Collection”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“mailto:john@example.org”/>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“mailto:bill@example.org”/>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“mailto:sally@example.org”/>
</ex:members>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
The RDF/N3 family
The anatomy of an NTriples file
<http://www.sciam.com/>
<http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title> “Scientific American” .

http://www.sciam.com/ Scientific American

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
The anatomy of an Turtle/N3 file
<http://www.example.org>
<http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator> <mailto:john@example.org> ;
<http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title> “Example Inc. Homepage” .

• “;” allows grouping of triples with common subject

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator
mailto:john@example.org
http://www.example.org/

Example Inc. Homepage

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
Common RDF/N3 idioms
• @prefix used to introduce QName abbreviations to N3 and Turtle
documents:

@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .

@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> .

@prefix ex: <http://example.org/ontology#> .

<http://www.example.org> dc:creator <mailto:john@example.org> ;

rdf:type ex:Website .
bNodes in N3 and Turtle
<http://www.example.org/> dc:creator [ ex:name “John Smith” ] .

• Or with nodeIDs:

<http://www.example.org/> dc:creator _:foo23 .

<http://test.example.org/> dc:creator _:foo23 .

_:foo23 ex:name “John Smith” .

Further Reading
RDF Status
• Original version published in 1999
• Working group (RDF Core) formed in April 2001
• Revised version published in early 2004
• New RDF working group chartered in 2011 (runs until 2013)
– New standard syntaxes (Turtle, JSON)
– Multiple graphs and graph stores
RDF references
• RDF homepage at W3C
– http://www.w3.org/RDF/
• RDF Core Working Group homepage
– http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/
• RDF Working Group homepage
– http://www.w3.org/2011/rdf-wg/
• RDF/N3 Primer
– http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer.html
• XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes
– http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/