How Owl 2.0 Imports Work

OWL 2.0 Imports

OWL 2.0 imports work through import by location. This means that imports work just like an html link. - it views the imported resource as a URL and follows it. Sometimes users will want to redirect the import statements however. Here are some examples:

1. the imports point to the internet but the user wants to edit the ontologies on his disk,
2. the imports point to one users local file system and the person reading the ontology does not have access to those file locations (this is probably not recommended practice),
3. the imports statements assume that some web container such as tomcat is running on the local machine.

In these cases the recommended practice is to use an XML Catalog that defines how the imported URL's should be redirected. But as far as I know, none of the tools have yet implemented this mechanism.

This page will be expanded as new developments arise.