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RDF Basics

See also: 002-exploring-oz-dev-log

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Basics#

RDF

  • at a general level - can be used to represent information about things that can be identified on the web - even if not on the web.
  • intended to be used by applications, rather than people

RDF's basic concept is that things are

  • identified using URIs; and
  • described using simple properties and property values.

Data takes the form of a graph of nodes and arcs. For example, the following statements becomes the figure below

"there is a Person identified by http://www.w3.org/People/EM/contact#me, whose name is Eric Miller, whose email address is em@w3.org, and whose title is Dr."

Where nodes are URIs the args (properties) are also URIs and values of properties are different types of "nodes" containing values

The RDF model#

A statement consists of three parts

  • subject what the RDF statement is about
  • predicate - identifies/labels the property of the subject the statement is talking about
  • object - the value of the property

subject and object form nodes. The predicate is the arc joining the nodes.

subject and predicate typically URIs. object can be a URI or a literal value (e.g. string, number, date)

Statements can be represented visually as graphs, or as triples (subject, predicate, object)