This document describes the vocabulary and effect of the built-in Jena assembler descriptions for constructing models (and other things). A companion document describes the built-in assembler classes and how to write and integrate your own assemblers. If you just need a quick guide to the common model specifications, see the assembler quickstart.
This document describes how to use the Assembler classes to
construct models -- and other things -- from RDF descriptions that
use the Jena Assembler vocabulary. That vocabulary is available in
assembler.ttl as an RDFS
schema with conventional prefix ja for the URI
http://jena.hpl.hp.com/2005/11/Assembler#; the class JA is its
Java rendition.
The examples used in this document are extracted from the examples
file examples.ttl. The pieces of RDF/OWL schema are
extracted from the ja-vocabulary file.
The property names selected are those which are the "declared
properties" (as per Jena's listDeclaredProperties method) of the
class. Only the most specialised super-classes and range classes are
shown, so (for example) rdf:Resource typically won't appear.
An Assembler specification is a Resource in some RDF Model. The properties of that Resource describe what kind of object is to be assembled and what its components are: for example, an InfModel is constructed by specifying a base model and a reasoner. The specifications for the components are themselves Assembler specifications given by other Resources in the same Model.For example, to specify a memory model with data loaded from a file:
eg:opening-example a ja:MemoryModel ; ja:content [ja:externalContent <file:////home/kers/projects/jena2/doc/assembler/Data/example.n3>] .
The rdf:type of eg:model specifies that the constructed Model is to
be a Jena memory-based model. The ja:content property specifies
that the model is to be loaded with the content of the resource
file:Data/example.n3. The content handler guesses from the ".n3"
suffix that this file is to be read using the Jena N3 reader.
Unless otherwise specified by an application, Assembler specifications are interpreted after completion by
(The supplied model is not modified.) In the example above,
eg:model has to be given an explicit type, but the ja:externalContent
bnode is implicitly typed by the domain of ja:externalContent. In
this document, we will usually leave out inferrable types.
We can construct our example model from the specification like this (you may need to tweak the filename to make this work in your environment):
Model spec = FileManager.get().loadModel( "examples.ttl" ); Resource root = spec.createResource( spec.expandPrefix( "eg:opening-example" ) ); Model m = Assembler.general.openModel( root );
The model is constructed from the "root resource",
eg:opening-example in our example. general knows how to create
all the kinds of objects - not just Models - that we describe in
the next sections.
Assembler specifications can describe many kinds of models: memory, inference, ontology, and file-backed. All of these model specifications share a set of base properties for attaching content and prefix mappings.
ja:Loadable a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . ja:initialContent a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:Loadable rdfs:range ja:Content . ja:content a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:Loadable ; rdfs:range ja:Content . ja:Model a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:ContentItem ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Loadable . ja:prefixMapping a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:Model ; rdfs:range ja:PrefixMapping .
All of a model's ja:content property values are interpreted as
specifying Content objects and a single composite Content
object is constructed and used to initialise the model. See
Content for the description of Content
specifications. For example:
eg:sharedContent ja:externalContent <http://somewhere/RDF/ont.owl> . eg:common-example a ja:MemoryModel ; ja:content eg:sharedContent ; ja:content [ja:externalContent <file:////home/kers/projects/jena2/doc/assembler/Data/A.rdf>] ; ja:content [ja:externalContent <file:////home/kers/projects/jena2/doc/assembler/Data/B.rdf>] .
The model constructed for eg:A will be loaded with the contents
of Data/A.n3, Data/B.rdf, and http://somewhere/RDF/ont.owl.
If the model supports transactions, then the content is loaded
inside a transaction; if the load fails, the transaction is
aborted, and a TransactionAbortedException thrown. If the content
has any prefix mappings, then they are also added to the model.
All of a model's ja:prefixMapping, ja:prefix, and
ja:namespace properties are interpreted as specifying a
PrefixMapping object and a single composite PrefixMapping is
constructed and used to set the prefixes of the model. See
PrefixMapping for the description of
Content specifications.
A Content specification describes content that can be used to fill models. Content can be external (files and URLs) or literal (strings in the specification) or quotations (referring to RDF which is part of the specification).
ja:Content a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:HasFileManager . ja:HasFileManager a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . ja:fileManager a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:HasFileManager ; rdfs:range ja:FileManager .
A ja:Content specification may have zero or more
ja:externalContent property values. These are URI resources
naming an external (file or http etc) RDF object. The constructed
Content object contains the union of the values of all such
resources. For example:
eg:external-content-example ja:externalContent <file:////home/kers/projects/jena2/doc/assembler/Data/C.owl>, <http://jena.hpl.hp.com/some-jena-data.rdf> .
The external content is located using a FileManager. If the
Content resource has a ja:fileManager property, then the
FileManager described by that resource is used. Otherwise, if the
ContentAssembler assembling this specification was constructed
with a FileManager argument, that FileManager is used.
Otherwise, the default FileManager, FileManager.get(), is
used.
The string literal value of the any ja:literalContent properties
is interpreted as RDF in an appropriate language. The constructed
Content object contains that RDF. The language is either specified
by an explicit ja:contentEncoding property value, or guessed from
the content of the string. The only encodings permitted are "N3"
and "RDF/XML". For example:
eg:literal-content-example ja:literalContent "_:it dc:title 'Interesting Times'" .
The literal content is wrapped so that prefix declarations for rdf, rdfs, owl, dc, and xsd apply before interpretation.
The property values of any ja:quotedContent properties should be
resources. The subgraphs rooted at those resources (using the
algorithm from ResourceUtils.reachableClosure()) are added to the
content.
A FileModel specification builds a memory model that is backed by a file. By "backed", we mean that the model is loaded from that file and written back to the file when (if) it is closed. Furthermore, the model (weakly) supports transactions.
eg:fileModel-example-1 ja:directory <file:///tmp> ; ja:modelName "simple" .
Here, the model is read from (and written to) the file
/tmp/simple. Directory names are given as resources (not
literals) and of course file names are system dependent -- this is
what one might see on a Unix system. If the directory name is to be
shared by several different FileModels, it can be useful to give it
a namespace prefix so that it can be changed in one place as
necessary.
eg:fileModel-example-2 ja:directory <file:////home/kers/projects/jena2/doc/assembler/FileModels> ; ja:mapName ja:true ; ja:modelName "http://somewhere.org/stuff.n3" .
Model names can be mapped to allow them to be URIs without the /s
in URIs being taken as directory separators. Here, the base file
name will be FileModels/http_C_S_Ssomewhere.org_Sstuff.n3. The
encoding is not pretty, but is sufficient for simple URIs.
ja:FileModel a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:mapName; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:directory; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:fileEncoding; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:NamedModel . ja:fileEncoding a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:FileModel . ja:directory a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:FileModel . ja:mapName a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:FileModel .
The ja:directory property specifies the directory in which the
model file is located. The ja:modelName property specifies the
name of the file within that directory.
The optional unique property ja:fileEncoding has as its value a
string which is the name of the encoding language of the model (ie
one of RDF/XML or N3, etc). If it is omitted, the language is
guessed from the suffix of the filename (as per
FileUtils.guessLang()).
If the optional unique property ja:mapName has the value
ja:true, then the name of the model is mapped by replacing any
_, /, or : characters by the escape sequences __, _S, or _C.
This translation (which is the same one done by FileGraphMaker
for FileModelMaker) allows URIs to be used as model names without
conflicting with the filesystems use of / characters.
Inference models are specified by supplying a description of the reasoner that is used by the model and (optionally) a base model to reason over. For example:
eg:inference-example ja:baseModel [a ja:MemoryModel] ; ja:reasoner [ja:reasonerURL <http://jena.hpl.hp.com/2003/RDFSExptRuleReasoner>] .
describes an inference model that uses RDFS reasoning. The
reasonerURL property value is the URI used to identify the
reasoner (it is the value of the Jena constant
RDFSRuleReasonerFactory.URI). The base model is specified as a
memory model; if it is left out, an empty memory model is used.
eg:db-inference-example ja:baseModel eg:model-example ; ja:reasoner [ja:reasonerURL <http://jena.hpl.hp.com/2003/RDFSExptRuleReasoner>] .
The same reasoner as used as in the previous example, but now the base model is a specific model description in the same way as our earlier example.
Because Jena's access to external reasoners goes through the same API as for its internal reasoners, you can access a DIG reasoner (such as Pellet running as a server) using an Assembler specification:
eg:external-inference-example ja:reasoner [<http://jena.hpl.hp.com/2003/JenaReasoner#extReasonerURL> <http://localhost:2004/> ; ja:reasonerURL <http://jena.hpl.hp.com/2003/DIGReasoner>] .
If there's a DIG server running locally on port 2004, this specification will create a DIG inference model that uses it.
The internal rule reasoner can be supplied with rules written inside the specification, or outside from some resource (file or http: URL): eg:rule-inference-example ja:reasoner [ja:rule "[r1: (?x my:P ?y) -> (?x rdf:type my:T)]"] .
This reasoner will infer a type declaration from a use of a property. (The prefix my will have to be known to the rule parser, of course.)
ja:InfModel a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:reasoner; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:baseModel; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Model . ja:reasoner a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:InfModel ; rdfs:range ja:ReasonerFactory . ja:baseModel a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:InfModel ; rdfs:range ja:Model . ja:HasRules a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . ja:rule a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:HasRules . ja:rulesFrom a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:HasRules . ja:rules a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:HasRules ; rdfs:range ja:RuleSet .
An InfModel's ja:baseModel property value specifies the base
model for the inference model; if omitted, an empty memory model is
used.
An InfModel's ja:ReasonerFactory property value specifies the
Reasoner for this inference model; if omitted, a
GenericRuleReasoner is used.
A Reasoner's optional ja:schema property specifies a Model which
contains the schema for the reasoner to be bound to. If omitted, no
schema is used.
If the Reasoner is a GenericRuleReasoner, it may have any of the
RuleSet properties ja:rules, ja:rulesFrom, or ja:rule. The
rules of the implied RuleSet are added to the Reasoner.
A ReasonerFactory can be specified by URL or by class name (but not both).
ja:ReasonerFactory a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:ReasonerURL; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:HasRules . ja:reasonerClass a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:ReasonerFactory . ja:reasonerURL a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:ReasonerFactory . ja:schema a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:ReasonerFactory ; rdfs:range ja:Model .
If the optional unique property ja:reasonerURL is specified, then
its resource value is the URI of a reasoner in the Jena reasoner
registry; the reasoner is the one with the given URI.
If the optional property ja:schema is specified, then the models
specified by all the schema properties are unioned and any reasoner
produced by the factory will have that union bound in as its schema
(using the Reasoner::bindSchema() method).
If the optional unique property ja:reasonerClass is specified,
its value names a class which implements ReasonerFactory. That
class is loaded and an instance of it used as the factory.
The class may be named by the lexical form of a literal, or by a URI with the (fake) "java:" scheme.
If the class has a method theInstance, that method is called to
supply the ReasonerFactory instance to use. Otherwise, a new
instance of that class is constructed. Jena's reasoner factories
come equipped with this method; for other factories, see the
documentation.
A RuleSet specification allows rules (for ReasonerFactories) to
be specified inline, elsewhere in the specification model, or in an
external resource.
ja:RuleSet a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:HasRules .
The optional repeatable property ja:rule has as its value a
literal string which is the text of a Jena rule or rules. All those
rules are added to the RuleSet.
The optional repeatable property ja:rulesFrom has as its value a
resource whose URI identifies a file or other external entity that
can be loaded as Jena rules. All those rules are added to the
RuleSet.
The optional repeatable property ja:rules has as its value a
resource which identifies another RuleSet in the specification
model. All those rules from that RuleSet are added to this
RuleSet.
Ontology models can be specified in several ways. The simplest is to use the name of an OntModelSpec from the Java OntModelSpec class:
eg:simple-ont-example ja:ontModelSpec ja:OWL_DL_MEM_RULE_INF .
This constructs an OntModel with an empty base model and using
the OWL_DL language and the full rule reasoner. All of the
OntModelSpec constants in the Jena implementation are available in
this way. A base model can be specified:
eg:base-ont-example ja:baseModel [a ja:MemoryModel ; ja:content [ja:externalContent <http://jena.hpl.hp.com/some-jena-data.rdf>]] .
The OntModel has a base which is a memory model loaded with the
contents of http://jena.hpl.hp.com/some-jena-data.rdf. Since the
ontModelSpec was omitted, it defaults to OWL_MEM_RDFS_INF - the
same default as ModelFactory.createOntologyModel().
ja:OntModel a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:UnionModel ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:InfModel . ja:ontModelSpec a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:OntModel ; rdfs:range ja:OntModelSpec . ja:OntModelSpec a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:like; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:reasonerFactory; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:importSource; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:documentManager; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:ontLanguage; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . ja:importSource a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:OntModelSpec . ja:reasonerFactory a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:OntModelSpec ; rdfs:range ja:ReasonerFactory . ja:documentManager a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:OntModelSpec . ja:ontLanguage a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:OntModelSpec . ja:likeBuiltinSpec a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:OntModelSpec .
OntModel is a subclass of InfModel, and the ja:baseModel
property means the same thing.
The OntModelSpec property value is a resource, interpreted as an
OntModelSpec description based on its name and the value of the
appropriate properties:
ja:likeBuiltinSpec: The value of this optional unique
property must be a JA resource whose local name is the same as the
name of an OntModelSpec constant (as in the simple case above).
This is the basis for the OntModelSpec constructed from this
specification. If absent, then OWL_MEM_RDFS_INF is used. To build
an OntModelSpec with no inference, use eg
ja:likeBuiltinSpec ja:OWL_MEM.ja:importSource: The value of this optional unique property
is a ModelSource description which describes where imports are
obtained from. A ModelSource is usually of of class ja:ModelSource.ja:documentManager: This value of this optional unique
property is a DocumentManager specification. If absent, the default
document manager is used.ja:reasonerFactory: The value of this optional unique
property is the ReasonerFactory resource which will be used to
construct this OntModelSpec's reasoner. A reasonerFactory
specification is the same as an InfModel's reasoner specification
(the different properties are required for technical reasons).ja:reasonerURL: as a special case of reasonerFactory, a
reasoner may be specified by giving its URL as the object of the
optional unique reasonerURL property. It is not permitted to
supply both a reasonerURL and reasonerFactory properties.ja:ontLanguage: The value of this optional unique property is
one of the values in the ProfileRegistry class which identifies
the ontology language of this OntModelSpec:Any unspecified properties have default values, normally taken from
those of OntModelSpec.OWL_MEM_RDFS_INF. However, if the
OntModelSpec resource is in the JA namespace, and its local name is
the same as that of an OntModelSpec constant, then that constant is
used as the default value.
An OntDocumentManager can be specified by a ja:DocumentManager
specification which describes the OntDocumentManager's file
manager and policy settings.
eg:mapper lm:mapping [lm:altName "file:etc/foo.n3" ; lm:name "file:foo.n3"] . eg:document-manager-example ja:fileManager [ja:locationMapper eg:mapper] ; ja:meta [ dm:altURL <http://localhost/RDF/my-alt.rdf>] .
In this example, eg:document-manager-example is a
ja:DocumentManager specification. It has its own
FileManager specification, the object of the
ja:fileManager property; that FileManager has a location
mapper, eg:mapper, that maps a single filename.
The document manager also has an additional property to link it to
document manager meta-data: the sub-model of the assembler
specification reachable from eg:document-manager-example is
passed to the document manager when it is created. For the meanings
of the dm: properties, see the Jena ontology documentation and
the ontology.rdf ontology.
ja:DocumentManager a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:policyPath; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:fileManager; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:fileManager; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:HasFileManager . ja:policyPath a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:DocumentManager .
The ja:fileManager property value, if present, has as its object
a ja:FileManager specification; the constructed document manager
is given a new file manager constructed from that specification. If
there is no ja:fileManager property, then the default
FileManager is used.
The ja:policyPath property value, if present, should be a string
which is a path to policy files as described in the Jena ontology
documentation. If absent, the usual default path is applied.
If the sub-model of the assembler specification reachable from the
DocumentManager resource contains any OntDocumentManager
DOC_MGR_POLICY or ONTOLOGY_SPEC objects, they will be
interpreted by the constructed document manager object.
ja:FileManager a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:locationMapper; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . ja:locationMapper a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:FileManager ; rdfs:range ja:LocationMapper .
A ja:FileManager object may have a ja:locationMapper property
value which identifies the specification of a LocationMapper
object initialising that file manager.
ja:LocationMapper a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty lm:mapping; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . lm:mapping a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:LocationMapper .
A ja:LocationMapper object may have lm:mapping property values,
describing the location mapping, as described in the FileManager
documentation. (Note that the vocabulary for those items is in a
different namespace than the JA properties and classes.)
Union models can be constructed from any number of sub-models and a single root model. The root model is the one written to when the union model is updated; the sub-models are untouched.
ja:UnionModel a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:rootModel; owl:maxCardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Model . ja:rootModel a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:UnionModel ; rdfs:range ja:Model . ja:subModel a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:UnionModel ; rdfs:range ja:Model .
If the single ja:rootModel property is present, its value
describes a model to use as the root model of the union. All
updates to the union are directed to this root model. If no root
model is supplied, the union is given an immutable, empty model
as its root.
Any ja:subModel property values have objects describing the
remaining sub-models of the union. The order of the sub-models in
the union is undefined (which is why there's a special rootModel
property).
The PrefixMappings of a model may be set from PrefixMapping specifications.
ja:PrefixMapping a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:Object . ja:includes a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:PrefixMapping ; rdfs:range ja:PrefixMapping . ja:SinglePrefixMapping a rdfs:Class ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:namespace; owl:cardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf [owl:onProperty ja:prefix; owl:cardinality 1] ; rdfs:subClassOf ja:PrefixMapping . ja:namespace a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:SinglePrefixMapping . ja:prefix a rdf:Property ; rdfs:domain ja:SinglePrefixMapping .
The ja:includes property allows a PrefixMapping to include the
content of other specified PrefixMappings.
The ja:prefix and ja:namespace properties allow the
construction of a single element of a prefix mapping by specifying
the prefix and namespace of the mapping.
There are two more Assembler directives that can be used in an
Assembler specification: the assembler and imports directives.
A specification may contain statements of the form:
someResource ja:assembler "some.Assembler.class.name"
When someResource is used as the type of a root object, the
AssemblerGroup that processes the description will use an instance
of the Java class named by the object of the statement. That class
must implement the Assembler interface. See
loading assembler classes for more
details.
Similarly, statements of the form:
someResource ja:loadClass "some.class.name"
will cause the named class to be loaded (but not treated as assemblers).
If a specification contains statements of the form:
anyResource owl:imports someURL
or, equivalently,
anyResource ja:imports someURL
then the specification is regarded as also containing the contents
of the RDF at someURL. That RDF may in turn contain imports
referring to other RDF.
The Assembler engine uses limited RDFS inference to complete the model it is given, so that the spec-writer does not need to write excessive and redundant RDF. (It does not use the usual Jena reasoners because this limited once-off reasoning has been faster.) The inference steps are:
This is sufficient for closed-world assembling. Other parts of the
JA schema -- eg, cardinality constraints -- are hard-coded into the
individual assemblers.