Change API for OWL Ontologies.
© The University of Manchester, 2002.

Package Specification

Package {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model org.semanticweb.owl.model} provides read-only access to OWL ontologies. This package contains class and interface definitions that support manipulation of those ontologies.

The basic philosophy is that changes are encapsulated in the various subclasses of {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model.change.OntologyChange OntologyChange}, which are then passed to an implementation of {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model.change.ChangeVisitor ChangeVisitor} for execution. The visitor can choose to implement the changes as it sees fit, possibly producing more change events if necessary in order to fulfill a particular strategy (e.g. removing all subclasses of a removed class -- see {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model.change.EvolutionStrategy EvolutionStrategy}).

To Do

This package is still incomplete. Change events to support a number of manipulations (such as removals) are still missing. In addition, no composite change events are currently defined.

Credits

The change interface borrows heavily from the approach adopted in the KAON API from the University of Karlsruhe. @author Sean Bechhofer, Phil Lord