[redland-dev] HTTP interfaces to RDF models

[Richard Newman]

On 12 Jul 2005, at 21:42, Jo Walsh wrote:
> experiments with it suggested that it would work well to have a
> standard list of namespace abbreviations so one didn't have to send
> 'USING foo for http://foo.com/' type statements about headers along
> with each query. You could ask a http server for an agreed URI and it
> would send back a list which looked something like this:
> http://map.wirelesslondon.info/docs/boot.xml
>
> if there were any de facto standard i would be keen to make an
> implementation.

When implementing a frontend[1] for twinql[2] I put in a checkbox to  
use default namespace prefixes (such as FOAF). Any provided in the  
query itself override the defaults.

Better would be a method as you describe -- provide a URI from which  
to fetch prefixes, or to ship them in a POST body.

I'm sure I've seen RDF tools that have internal default namespace  
prefixes, so this would formalise and extend that.

-R

[1] http://www.noctua.co.uk/sparql/
[2] http://www.holygoat.co.uk/projects/twinql/