Ontology packages#

Ontologies can be added to SimPhoNy by installing ontology packages, which are YAML configuration files that, in addition to pointing to the actual ontology files, also define extra metadata.

An example of an ontology package file is shown below. A description of each keyword is provided right after the example.

identifier: dcat
ontology_file: https://www.w3.org/ns/dcat2.rdf
format: "application/rdf+xml"
requirements:
  - dcterms
  - prov
  - foaf
namespaces:
  dcat: http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#
  # another_namespace: http://www.w3.org/ns/example_namespace#

Keywords#

identifier: Can be any alphanumerical string. It is the name of the ontology package. It is used for uninstallation (e.g. pico uninstall dcat) and dependency verification.

ontology_file: Path to the (inferred if applicable) ontology file. That means you should have executed a reasoner on your ontology, e.g. by using the “Export inferred axioms” functionality of Protégé.

format (optional): File format of the ontology file. When not provided, it will be guessed from the file extension, although such guess may not always be correct. The supported ontology languages and serialization formats are listed here.

requirements: A list of identifiers of other ontology packages that this one depends on. An ontology depends on another ontology if it references classes, relationships or attributes from it (e.g. by defining a subclass relationship).

namespaces: Mappings that give each IRI prefix in the ontology file a namespace name, used to import the namespace within SimPhoNy. If any of the provided IRIs do not end with “/” or “#”, “#” will be automatically added.