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Suggestions from January review on §1.4 #194

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4ec218a
concrete syntax allow to *associate* prefixes with IRIs
pchampin Apr 14, 2025
30e15d4
pnames actually satisfy the IRI grammar
pchampin Apr 23, 2025
cf070ef
improve working around namespace table
pchampin Apr 23, 2025
f895a78
add missing verb, and follow @hartig's proposal
pchampin Apr 24, 2025
851d2c1
Apply suggestions from code review
pchampin Apr 25, 2025
6d11414
clarify text
pchampin Apr 25, 2025
5f5790b
Update spec/index.html
pchampin Apr 25, 2025
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18 changes: 11 additions & 7 deletions spec/index.html
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Expand Up @@ -269,10 +269,11 @@ <h3>RDF Vocabularies and Namespace IRIs</h3>
<p>The <a>IRIs</a> in an <a>RDF vocabulary</a> often begin with
a common substring known as a <dfn>namespace IRI</dfn>.
Some namespace IRIs are associated by convention with a short name
known as a <dfn>namespace prefix</dfn>. Some examples:
known as a <dfn>namespace prefix</dfn>.
The table below provides some examples.

<table id="tab-vocab-ns" class="simple">
<caption>Some example namespace prefixes and IRIs</caption>
<caption>Some namespace prefixes and IRIs used in this specification</caption>
<tr>
<th>Namespace prefix</th>
<th>Namespace IRI</th>
Expand All @@ -293,12 +294,15 @@ <h3>RDF Vocabularies and Namespace IRIs</h3>
</tr>
</table>

<p>In some serialization formats it is common to abbreviate <a>IRIs</a>
that start with <a>namespace IRIs</a> by using a
<a>namespace prefix</a> in order to assist readability. For example, the IRI
<p>In some serialization formats it is common
to some [=namespace IRIs=] to arbitrary [=namespace prefixes=],
and to abbreviate <a>IRIs</a> that start with one of those <a>namespace IRIs</a> by using the corresponding <a>namespace prefix</a>,
in order to assist readability.
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Suggested change
<p>In some serialization formats it is common
to some [=namespace IRIs=] to arbitrary [=namespace prefixes=],
and to abbreviate <a>IRIs</a> that start with one of those <a>namespace IRIs</a> by using the corresponding <a>namespace prefix</a>,
in order to assist readability.
<p>In some serialization formats it is common
to abbreviate <a>IRIs</a> that start with one of those <a>namespace IRIs</a> by using the corresponding <a>namespace prefix</a>,
in order to assist readability.

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a verb ("associate") was missing from my text, sorry.
Hopefully, this is now clearer.

The point was to say explicitly that the prefix-IRI association was specified in the syntax, not provided by some external convention.
(the previous wording was ambiguous in that respect)

For example, the IRI
<code>http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#XMLLiteral</code>
would be abbreviated as <code>rdf:XMLLiteral</code>.
Note however that these abbreviations are <em>not</em> valid IRIs,
would be abbreviated as <code>rdf:XMLLiteral</code>
with the prefix mapping from <a href="#tab-vocab-ns"></a>.
Note however that these abbreviations are <em>not</em> valid IRIs (or only coincidentally),
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Note however that these abbreviations are <em>not</em> valid IRIs (or only coincidentally),
Note, however, that these abbreviations are <em>not</em> designed to be valid IRIs,

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I'm not sure about this... I feel that it alters the message. @afs @gkellogg @hartig WDYT?

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I agree that Ted's proposal has a slightly different touch. Users who create (/design) such abbreviations may indeed assume that they are creating valid IRIs. The purpose of the sentence is to emphasize that such an assumption is wrong.

Having said that, the "(or only coincidentally)" part that you added is also not ideal, because it is not clear what exactly that means and why that is mentioned.

How's about changing this whole part of the paragraph (including all the sentences that follow the one in question) as follows?

Note that such abbreviations are <em>not</em> meant to be processed directly as IRIs and
must not be used in syntactic contexts where IRIs are expected.
Instead, they are merely a syntactic convenience for abbreviating IRIs;
for processing, the actual IRIs are reconstructed by replacing the namespace prefixes
with the corresponding namespace IRIs.
In this sense, namespace IRIs and namespace prefixes are not a formal part of the RDF data model.

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TL/DR: I like very much your proposal @hartig

FTR, the reason I added this parenthetical was that the statement is, arguably, inaccurate: rdf:type or xsd:string satisfy the IRI grammar! Whether they are valid IRIs may be a slightly different issue, if we consider that an IRI is valid only if it uses a registered scheme and complies with the additional constraints of that scheme... But I don't know of any implementation that is so strict...

Anyway, your wording is IMO much better. Can you push a commit to this branch, please?

and must not be used in contexts where IRIs are expected.
Namespace IRIs and namespace prefixes are <em>not</em> a formal part of the
RDF data model. They are merely a syntactic convenience for
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