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I have a schema which is designed to permit the description of certain types of electronic devices. XML files compliant to the schema describe the interface to the device. The schema permits the way that the interface functions to be described. As part of this, data types are defined and then used. What I would like to do is to permit the author of an XML file to link the data types they define to semantics provided as a separate RDF/OWL document.

As far as I understand it, this means that a type should be related to an OWL class. The way this is done for XHTML, for example, seems to be using RDFa (the "typeof" attribute, I think?). What is most appropriate way to do this for my own schema? Should I use (a subset of RDFa)? How do I go about incorporating this into my own schema such that it validates? Am I going about this all wrong?

P Mendham
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What is most appropriate way to do this for my own schema?

It seems that you are trying to capture some specifications for electronic devices. In this case, you can then use plain OWL, this is one of its use case. You just represent the types as OWL classes as mentioned.

Should I use (a subset of RDFa)?

RDFa are meant to be used inside HTML documents for search engines to process, so I don't think it suits your case. But anyway: RDFa is just a framework to annotate content, so you could perfectly annotate HTML content with your XML types if you want a straightforward solution.

How do I go about incorporating this into my own schema such that it validates?

OWL ontology validation is done via a reasoner, if you use a tool like Protege you have would have a platform to edit and create your OWL ontology as well as to use the reasoner.

If you include some snippet of your XML and pseudo-code of what you want to achieve I could provide a more detailed answer.

loopasam
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  • Thank you for your detailed answer. Unfortunately I am tied to using a custom XML format for describing the functional interface to the device. This is partially based on an existing schema and compatibility has been identified as a priority for us. I just need a way to link elements in my schema to elements in a standalone ontology in OWL. At the moment I just permit each type in the XML description to reference an OWL class using a URI. Is RDFa specific to (X)HTML? I understood it could be applied to arbitrary XML? I don't need to make ontological definitions in the XML, just references. – P Mendham Apr 26 '13 at 09:40
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    OK, I think I got it. So yeah you are probably doing it the right way, I didn't know that you could use RDFa inside plain XML documents too (but it seems you can - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDFa). Solution is: RDFa annotations directly inside your original XML tags. These annotations are linking to the OWL classes from your ontology (vocabulary). – loopasam Apr 26 '13 at 11:25