The N3 Cheat Sheet

When I was getting to know RDF, I put together a short quickref guide of the N3 Notation to help remind me while I wrote ontologies. I’ve found many of the tools such as Protege awkward or cumbersome, so I tend to use a text editor. Needless to say there’s no integrated to help, so I used the following table to help me. I hope it helps you get started. I know it is pretty rough, and in some cases I’m using namespaces from all over the place. I will tidy it up soon. I promise.

You might also want to take a look a the W3C’s N3 Primer, the Specification and the Resources link page.

*Task*	*Example and Commentary*
Ontologies – importing	<> a daml:Ontology; daml:comment "An example ontology"; daml:imports <http://www.daml.org/2000/10/daml-ont>; daml:versionInfo "$Id: daml-ex.n3,v 1.5 2001/05/21 03:11:59 timbl Exp $"
Ontologies – namespaces	@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> .
Ontologies – this document	<> <#title> "A simple example of N3". the empty brackets indicate the current document
Basics – triples	<#subject> <#predicate> <#object> . the fullstop matters
Basics – literals	<#subject> <#predicate> 1524 . on object only
Basics – default namespace	@prefix : <#> . now you can refer to things as :Foo rather than <#Foo>
Syntax – comments	`# this is a comment`
Syntax – chaining	:MyCar :make :Hyundai; :model :SantaFe .
Syntax – multiline literals	`"""something over a few lines"""`
Syntax – blank nodes	<#pat> <#child> [ <#age> 4] , [ <#age> 3]. creates an anonymous subject for the predicate and object. i.e. some child of age 4
Syntax – string escaping	Goto here It follows the rules laid down by Python.
Syntax – equivalence	`:Woman = foo:FemaleAdult . Title a rdf:Property; = dc:title .`
Syntax – going down paths	`:joe!fam:mother!loc:office!loc:zip` Joe’s mother’s office’s zipcode
Syntax – going up paths	`:joe!fam:mother^fam:mother` Anyone whose mother is Joe’s mother.
Syntax – formulae	`{ [ x:firstname "Ora" ] dc:wrote [ dc:title "Moby Dick" ] } a n3:falsehood .` the expression in {braces} is false – that there is nothing called Ora which wrote anything titled "Moby Dick".
Syntax – lists	`(:Tom ick :Harry)`
Syntax – comments	`erson a daml:Class; daml:comment "every person is a man or a woman"; daml:disjointUnionOf ( :Man :Woman ).`
Syntax – enumerations	`:Height a daml:Class; daml:oneOf ( :short :medium :tall ) .`
Classes – declarations	erson a rdfs:Class.
Classes – inheritance	:Woman a rdfs:Class; rdfs:subClassOf erson .
Classes – multiple inheritance	`:TallMan a daml:Class; daml:intersectionOf ( :TallThing :Man ) .`
Classes – disjoint union	`erson a daml:Class; daml:comment "every person is a man or a woman"; daml:disjointUnionOf ( :Man :Woman ).`
Classes – complement	`:Car a daml:Class; daml:comment "no car is a person"; daml:subClassOf [ a daml:Class; daml:complementOf erson ] .`
Properties – declaration	`:sister a rdf:Property. sister rdfs:domain erson; rdfs:range :Woman.`
Properties – transitive	`:descendant a daml:TransitiveProperty .`
Properties – restrictions	`:TallThing a daml:Class; daml:restrictedBy [ a daml:Restriction; daml:onProperty :height; daml:toValue :tall ] .`
Properties – cardinality	`:father a daml:Property; daml:cardinality "1"; daml:range :Man; daml:subProperty :parent .`
Properties – max and min cardinalities	`:wheels a daml:Property; daml:minCardinality "1" . daml:maxCardinality "3" .`
Properties – subproperties	`:father a daml:Property; daml:cardinality "1"; daml:range :Man; daml:subProperty :parent .` redefines the range of the property
Properties – inverse	`:child a daml:Property; daml:inverseOf :parent .`
Rules – implication	`Foo log:implies :Bar Foo => :Bar`
Rules – quantifiers (for each)	@forSome <#g>. The universal quantifier (∀g) – this is global to the document
Rules – quantifiers (for some)	@forSome <#g>. the existential quantifier (∃g) – also global to the document
Rules – free variables	`{?P @has owl:inverseOf ?Q. ?S ?P ?O} => {?O ?Q ?S}.` ?P, ?Q, ?S, and ?O are all free variables. these variables are local to the clause only