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.
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:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn"> <dc:title>Tony Benn</dc:title> <dc:publisher>Wikipedia</dc:publisher> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>
may be written in Notation3 like this:
@prefix dc: <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 Directives Lists Literals / Syntactic sugar RDF paths QNames /
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