OpenOffice can parse RDF ?!?!?

[John Madden <john.madden@mac.com>]

Hi Svante,

I'm working on my sample document for the presentation week after next. It's coming along nicely.

I'm combining OpenOffice XForms with our metadata spec, in the following sense: I've created a form where filling out the form populates an RDF "shell" instance that once completed can be acted upon by a submit action. In some future version of OO, I can imagine a submit action being supported where the instance is actually saved as a metadata file into the document's ODF package, and the metadata manifest is updated. I've attached the ODF --- very much a "work-in-progress", but I think you might get a very rough idea.

Colon2.odt

The interesting thing I've discovered--and I'm hoping you can shed some light on this--is that OO 2.2.1 out-of-the-box seems to "understand" RDF remarkably well. When I create a new instance in my XForms model, and then populate it with a by linking a "sample" RDF file to serve as a xforms:instance, I find that the instance browser in OO -- remarkably -- shows a "smart view" of the RDF content. Specifically, the rdf:Description elements are all elided (except those that refer to blank nodes) and OO 2.2.1 seems to know that the @about of an rdf:Description element is actually the subject of the triple  !!!!

Look, for example, at the RDF file:

<rdf:RDF xml:base="http://www.example.org/colonExample" xmlns="http://www.example.org/colonExample#" xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#" xmlns:pert="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#" xmlns:protege="http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/owl/protege#" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#">

      <rdf:Description rdf:about="#JJ_Polypectomy">

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Polypectomy"/>

            <pert:hasProcedureDateTime rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime">2007-08-27T08:00:00</pert:hasProcedureDateTime>

            <pert:hasOperatingSurgeon rdf:resource="#Sam_Surgeon"/>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:about="#Sam_Surgeon">

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Surgeon"/>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="A0">

            <pert:hasUnit rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#centimeter"/>

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Size"/>

            <pert:hasQuantity rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#float">2.0</pert:hasQuantity>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:about="">

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Ontology"/>

            <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon"/>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:about="#Jim_Jones">

            <pert:hasSpecimen rdf:resource="#JJ_Specimen"/>

            <pert:hasPatientIdentifier rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string">012-34-5678</pert:hasPatientIdentifier>

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Patient"/>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:about="#Pete_Pathologist">

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Pathologist"/>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:about="#JJ_Specimen">

            <pert:hasGrossSize rdf:nodeID="A1"/>

            <pert:hasIntegrity rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Intact_integrity"/>

            <pert:hasSite rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#RightColon"/>

            <pert:hasSpecimenIdentifier rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string">SL-07-98765-A</pert:hasSpecimenIdentifier>

            <pert:fromProcedure rdf:resource="#JJ_Polypectomy"/>

            <pert:hasHistologicType rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#MucinousAdenocarcinoma_type"/>

            <pert:hasInvasiveSize rdf:nodeID="A0"/>

            <pert:hasHistologicGrade rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#HighGrade"/>

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#ColonTumorSpecimen"/>

            <pert:hasConfiguration rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Sessile_configuration"/>

            <pert:hasPathologist rdf:resource="#Pete_Pathologist"/>

      </rdf:Description>

      <rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="A1">

            <pert:hasQuantity rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#float">0.0</pert:hasQuantity>

            <pert:hasUnit rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#centimeter"/>

            <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.cap.org/2007/08/templates/colon#Size"/>

      </rdf:Description>

</rdf:RDF>

And now look at the (incompletely expanded) Data Navigator tree that OO 2.21 shows -- with no additional prompting -- when I import this RDF as an XForms instance:

This totally blows me away. Can you clarify for me how OO 2.2.1 is so adept at parsing RDF?

John