XML format

RDF/XML

A graph serialisation in XML, where identity lives in rdf:about and nesting means relationship. Also the real format behind documents labelled RSS 1.0.

RDF/XML encodes a graph of subject-predicate-object statements, so its documents read very differently from tree-shaped XML: identity lives in rdf:about attributes and nesting expresses relationships rather than containment.

Its practical relevance to feed work is RSS 1.0, whose root is <rdf:RDF>. Any tool that detects feeds by looking for an <rss> or <feed> root will misclassify those documents entirely.

Constraints that bite

The same graph has many valid XML serialisations — text diffing RDF/XML is close to meaningless.
RSS 1.0 has an <rdf:RDF> root, so root-element feed detection fails on it.
rdf:about and rdf:resource carry identity; ignoring attributes loses the whole model.
Namespace prefixes are load-bearing for readability but never for meaning.

Root element: <RDF>
Media type: application/rdf+xml
Extensions: .rdf, .xml
Namespaces: http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
XMLDir label: xml

Specification: RDF 1.1 XML syntax

A minimal valid document

Every example on this site is checked against the same parser the workspace uses, so what you see below is known to be well-formed.

rdf.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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://example.com/first">
    <dc:title>First post</dc:title>
  </rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

Validate your own RDF/XML Extract its XPath map

Namespaces you will meet

Other formats

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