GraphDB ruleset usage optimisation¶

GraphDB applies the following rules to optimise the ruleset usage so that inferred statements such as <P a rdf:Property>, <P rdfs:subPropertyOf P> and <X a rdfs:Resource> can appear in the repository:

/*partialRDFS*/
Id: rdf1_rdfs4a_4b
x a y
-------------------------------
a <rdf:type> <rdf:Property>
x <rdf:type> <rdfs:Resource>
a <rdf:type> <rdfs:Resource>
y <rdf:type> <rdfs:Resource>
/*partialRDFS*/

Id: rdfs6
a <rdf:type> <rdf:Property>
-------------------------------
a <rdfs:subPropertyOf> a

According to them, whatever statement comes into the repository, its subject, predicate and object are resources and its predicate is an rdf:Property, which then becomes subPropertyOf itself using the second rule (the reflexivity of subPropertyOf). These rules, however, if executed every time, present a similar challenge to when using owl:sameAs. To avoid the performance drop, GraphDB obtains these statements through code so that <P a rdf:Property> and <X a rdfs:Resource> are asserted only once – when a property or a resource is encountered for the first time (except in the ‘optimized’ rulesets, where rdfs:Resource is omitted because of the very limited use of such inference).

If we start with the empty ruleset, <P a rdf:Property>, <P rdfs:subPropertyOf P> and <X a rdfs:Resource> statements won’t be inferred until we switch the ruleset. Then the inference will take place for the new properties and resources only.

Inversely, if we start with a non-empty ruleset and switch to the empty one, then the statements <P a rdf:Property>, <P rdfs:subPropertyOf P> and <X a rdfs:Resource> inferred so far will remain. This is true even if we delete statements or recompute the inferred closure.