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I'm trying to wrap my head around the first principles that stood behind w3c's effort to define OWL, SHACL. While also defining RIF - Rule Interchange Format

Does RIF and SHACL answer the same problem?

If not what is the need that each of these solves?

unor
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Maxim Veksler
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    Compare https://www.w3.org/TR/rif-ucr/ and https://www.w3.org/TR/shacl-ucr/. I'd say that RIF is rather for rule interchange between existing rule systems than for immediate execution in rule systems. That's why RIF is very broad. For example, it allows non-monotonic reasoning. Also, it seems RIF was desighed bearing in mind inference rules, whereas SHACL is designed rather/also for validation rules. – Stanislav Kralin Dec 05 '18 at 17:32
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    Folloing up: SHACL is for validation, OWL for modelling, which can include rules but not only rules (e.g. class declarations, relations etc). RIF is indeed a more general-purpose rule language that isn't at all 1:1 with wither OWL or SHACL which aren't 1:1 with each other! – Nicholas Car Apr 01 '20 at 10:51

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It's been quite a long time since this question was asked but let me share my understanding:

While RIF focuses on the interchange of rules between rule-based systems, SHACL focuses on the validation and constraint checking of RDF data. So they target different aspects.

RIF focuses on providing a standardized format for expressing and exchanging rules between rule-based systems, allowing rules to be shared and executed across various platforms, and providing the necessary framework for it.

On the other hand, SHACL is a language specifically designed for specifying and validating constraints or shapes on RDF data graphs. It allows defining rules that describe the structure, data types, and interrelationships of resources in RDF graphs, with the aim of defining and enforcing constraints on the data, enabling the validation and verification of RDF data against predefined shapes.

Ubikitina
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