Notation3

Notation3
Filename extension	.n3
Internet media type	text/n3;charset=utf-8
Developed by	Tim Berners-Lee
Type of format	semantic web
Container for	RDF data
Standard	n3
Website	www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/n3/

Notation3, or N3 as it is more commonly known, is a shorthand non-XML serialization of Resource Description Framework models, designed with human-readability in mind: N3 is much more compact and readable than XML RDF notation. The format is being developed by Tim Berners-Lee and others from the Semantic Web community. A formalization of the logic underlying N3 was published by Berners-Lee and others in 2008. ^[1]

N3 has several features that go beyond a serialization for RDF models, such as support for RDF-based rules. Turtle is a simplified, RDF-only subset of N3.

Examples

The following is an RDF model in standard XML notation:

<rdf:RDFxmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"><rdf:Descriptionrdf:about="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn"><dc:title>TonyBenn</dc:title><dc:publisher>Wikipedia</dc:publisher></rdf:Description></rdf:RDF>

may be written in Notation3 like this:

@prefixdc:<http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn>dc:title"Tony Benn";dc:publisher"Wikipedia".

This N3 code above would also be in valid Turtle syntax.

Comparison of Notation3, Turtle, and N-Triples

Feature		Notation3	Turtle	N-Triples
Character encoding		UTF-8		ASCII
Directives	@base	Yes	Yes	No
	@forAll	Yes	No	No
	@forSome	Yes	No	No
	@keywords	Yes	No	No
	@prefix	Yes	Yes	No
Lists
	()(DAML lists)	Yes	Yes	No
	{ … }(statement lists)	Yes	No	No
Literals	true / false (Boolean)	Yes	Yes	No
	xsd:decimal (decimal arbitrary length)	Yes	Yes	No
	xsd:double (decimal double)	Yes	Yes	No
	xsd:integer (decimal integer)	Yes	Yes	No
Syntactic sugar	RDF paths	Yes	No	No
	QNames	Yes	Yes	No
	a/@a(equiv. to rdf:type)	Yes	Yes	No
	[](shorthand for blank node)	Yes	Yes	No
	=>(x implies y)	Yes	No	No
	<=(y implies x)	Yes	No	No
	=(x is equivalent to y)	Yes	No	No
	,(repeat object in list)	Yes	Yes	No
	;(repeat subject/verb in list)	Yes	Yes	No

See also

• N-Triples
• Turtle (syntax)

External links

• Notation 3 W3C Submission
• Notation 3 Outline on W3C Design Issues by Tim Berners-Lee
• Notation 3 Primer: Getting into RDF & Semantic Web using N3
• A Rough Guide to Notation3
• RDF for "Little Languages"
• An editing mode of N3 for Emacs
• An editing mode of N3 for vim
• An editing mode of N3 for textmate
• An editing mode of N3 for gedit
• EulerGUI, an IDE centered on N3 editor with translation from RDF, with validation, prefix management, uploading of resources, graph view, table view, etc.

References

1. Berners-Lee, T. I. M.; Connolly, D. A. N.; Kagal, L.; Scharf, Y.; Hendler, J. I. M. (2008). "N3Logic: A logical framework for the World Wide Web". Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. 8 (3): 249–269. arXiv: 0711.1533 . doi:10.1017/S1471068407003213.