Redland/Windows RDF

John C Barstow

Brookers Ltd

What Is Redland?

• It's an RDF Application Framework
• Provides parser
  • RDF/XML (everyone's favourite)
  • n3 (simple text notation)
  • GRDDL ("convert" XML/XHTML documents)
  • Vocabulary-specific (RSS tag soup)
• Provides backing store
  • MySQL
  • Berkerly DB
  • flat file
  • In-memory

What Is Redland?

• Provides query support
  • Query-by-example
  • SPARQL (latest W3 draft!)
  • RDQL
• Provides language bindings
  • C# (developed on Mono, ported to MS runtime)
  • Python (ported to Windows)
  • Ruby (ported; some more work)
  • Perl (next on list)
  • PHP

Porting to Windows

• Written in C - create vcproj files; easy
• MSVC is NOT very ANSI compliant
• Exporting of constants is problematic
• Multiple C runtimes - need to use only one
• Preprocessor macros are global!

RDF Use Cases

• Distributed XML
• Agile database
• AI enabler
  • Semantic Web
  • Software agents
• RDF vocabularies
  • FOAF, Dublin Core, RSS, PRISM, SKOS, etc.

Distributed XML

• Private annotations
• "Modify" documents you don't control
• Store sensitive details seperately
• Work with info all over the Web

Agile Database

• Open, extensible schema by default
• Incomplete records are a feature
• Anonymous records can be specified inline
• The data is the model

AI enabler

• Roots in graph theory
• Formal knowledge representation
• OWL enables descriptive logic
• Unambiguous, extensible vocabularies

RDF-based vocabularies

• Dublin Core - document annotation
• FOAF and FOAFCorp - information about people
• RSS - syndication feeds
• SKOS - thesauri, glossaries, formal taxonomies
• OWL - Web Ontology Language; formal logic

In Summary

• Redland makes working with RDF from code easy
• Porting to Windows simplifies our lives
• RDF is the future