RDF Schema

RDF Schema (RDFS) is an extension to RDF.

RDF Schema and Application Classes

RDF describes resources through classes, properties, and values.

Additionally, RDF requires a way to define application-specific classes and properties. Application-specific classes and properties must be defined using extensions to RDF.

RDF Schema is such an extension.

RDF Schema (RDFS)

RDF Schema does not provide actual application-specific classes and properties, but provides a framework for describing application-specific classes and properties.

Classes in RDF Schema are very similar to classes in object-oriented programming languages. This enables resources to be defined as instances of classes and subclasses of classes.

RDFS Example

The following example demonstrates some aspects of the capabilities of RDFS:

above In the example, the resource "horse" is a subclass of class "animal".

Example of abbreviation

Since an RDFS class is an RDF resource, we can replace the above by using rdfs:Class instead of rdf:Description and removing the rdf:type information. The example is abbreviated:

That's it !