Notation3
| Filename extension |
.n3 |
|---|---|
| Internet media type |
text/n3;charset=utf-8 |
| Developed by | Tim Berners-Lee |
| Type of format | semantic web |
| Container for | RDF data |
| Standard | n3 |
| Website | www |
Notation3, or N3 as it is more commonly known, is a shorthand non-XML serialization of Resource Description Framework models, designed with human-readability in mind: N3 is much more compact and readable than XML RDF notation. The format is being developed by Tim Berners-Lee and others from the Semantic Web community. A formalization of the logic underlying N3 was published by Berners-Lee and others in 2008.[1]
N3 has several features that go beyond a serialization for RDF models, such as support for RDF-based rules. Turtle is a simplified, RDF-only subset of N3.
Examples
The following is an RDF model in standard XML notation:
<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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn">
<dc:title>Tony Benn</dc:title>
<dc:publisher>Wikipedia</dc:publisher>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
may be written in Notation3 like this:
@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn>
dc:title "Tony Benn";
dc:publisher "Wikipedia".
This N3 code above would also be in valid Turtle syntax.
Comparison of Notation3, Turtle, and N-Triples
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| Feature | Notation3 | Turtle | N-Triples | |
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| Character encoding | UTF-8 | ASCII | ||
| Directives | @base |
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@forAll |
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@forSome |
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@keywords |
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@prefix |
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| Lists | ||||
() (DAML lists) |
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{ … } (statement lists) |
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| Literals | true / false(Boolean) |
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xsd:decimal (decimal arbitrary length) |
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xsd:double (decimal double) |
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xsd:integer (decimal integer) |
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| Syntactic sugar | RDF paths | |
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| QNames | |
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a/@a (equiv. to rdf:type) |
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[] (shorthand for blank node) |
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=> (x implies y) |
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<= (y implies x) |
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= (x is equivalent to y) |
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, (repeat object in list) |
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; (repeat subject/verb in list) |
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See also
External links
- Notation 3 W3C Submission
- Notation 3 Outline on W3C Design Issues by Tim Berners-Lee
- Notation 3 Primer: Getting into RDF & Semantic Web using N3
- A Rough Guide to Notation3
- RDF for "Little Languages"
- An editing mode of N3 for Emacs
- An editing mode of N3 for vim
- An editing mode of N3 for textmate
- An editing mode of N3 for gedit
- EulerGUI, an IDE centered on N3 editor with translation from RDF, with validation, prefix management, uploading of resources, graph view, table view, etc.
References
- ^ Berners-Lee, T. I. M.; Connolly, D. A. N.; Kagal, L.; Scharf, Y.; Hendler, J. I. M. (2008). "N3Logic: A logical framework for the World Wide Web". Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. 8 (3). arXiv:0711.1533. doi:10.1017/S1471068407003213.