[rdfweb-dev] Cascading question: WUZ:Names in FOAF

[Danny Ayers]

> Does RDF have a cascading system whereby the elements of a vocabulary
> (ontology, taxonomy, whatever we're calling them) can be written
> inline (or, embedded to use CSS parlance) to
> override/redirect/originate those written highr up the document?

In a word, no. I'd also caution against thinking too much about the RDF/XML
syntax - the juicy stuff is in the underlying model. See
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/

The RDF model can be viewed as a collection of statements, such as

Jane address jane at here.com
John address john at here.com

The schemas that define the vocabularies are made up of statements of the
same kind of form - you don't have a split like CSS/HTML.

The order in which they appear in the XML representation doesn't matter.
What isn't so obvious, that ties in with your question, is that

Jane address jane at here.com
Jane address john at here.com

is interpreted as two independent statements, one doesn't override the
other.

If you want to work with unique properties etc, you have to incorporate
languages (such as OWL and DAML+OIL) that are built on top of RDF.

If you have a specific reason why you'd want to do it CSS-style, fire away -
there's probably a way around it.

Cheers,
Danny.