RDF Tutorial

RDF Reference

RDF Main Elements

The main elements of RDF are the root element, <RDF>, and the <Description> element, which identifies a resource.

The <rdf:RDF> Element

<rdf:RDF> is the root element of an RDF document. It defines the XML document to be an RDF document. It also contains a reference to the RDF namespace:

The <rdf:Description> Element

The <rdf:Description> element identifies a resource with the about attribute.

The <rdf:Description> element contains elements that describe the resource:

The elements, artist, country, company, price, and year, are defined in the http://www.recshop.fake/cd# namespace. This namespace is outside RDF (and not a part of RDF). RDF defines only the framework. The elements, artist, country, company, price, and year, must be defined by someone else (company, organization, person, etc).

Properties as Attributes

The property elements can also be defined as attributes (instead of elements):

Properties as Resources

The property elements can also be defined as resources:

In the example above, the property artist does not have a value, but a reference to a resource containing information about the artist.