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chainingrelrdfa

RDFa chaining with about and resource

The W3C recommendation for RDFa Core 1.1 Second Edition gives examples for chaining: http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-core/#h3_s_chaining

Example 29:

<div about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Albert_Einstein">
  <div rel="dbp-owl:residence">
    <span about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/German_Empire"></span>
    <span about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Switzerland"></span>
  </div>
</div>

Why don't they use resource instead of about to state the object? like this:

<div about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Albert_Einstein">
  <div rel="dbp-owl:residence">
    <span resource="http://dbpedia.org/resource/German_Empire"></span>
    <span resource="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Switzerland"></span>
  </div>
</div>

Or does chaining with rel and resource not work for some reason?

In the recommendation they say, that about is used to state a subject in RDF terminology and resource can be used for objects: http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-core/#h2_s_syntax

But here (in example 29) about is used to state the object IMO. What should I use now? about or resource?

Thx for any help.

Solution

  • If you check the two versions using RDF translator you'll see that the versions are semantically identical. However, IMHO, it is better to have a single about="" enhanced with one or more resources. Logically, about="" is similar to skos:topConcept. The related statements, identified with resource="", add precision to the topConcept.