Editing Reification (computer science) (section)

=== ''n''-ary relations ===
In Semantic Web languages, such as RDF and OWL, a property is a binary relation used to link two individuals or an individual and a value. However, in some cases, the natural and convenient way to represent certain concepts is to use relations to link an individual to more than just one individual or value. These relations are called [[n-ary relations]]. Examples are representing relations among multiple individuals, such as a committee, a person who is a committee member and another person who has nominated the first person to become the committee member, or a buyer, a seller, and an object that was bought when describing a purchase of a book.

A more general approach to reification is to create an explicit new class and n new properties to represent an ''n''-ary relation, making an instance of the relation linking the {{var|n}} individuals an instance of this class. This approach can also be used to represent provenance information and other properties for an individual relation instance.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-n-aryRelations/ |title=W3C Defining N-ary relations on Semantic Web |publisher=W3.org |date= |accessdate=2010-10-09}}</ref>
<syntaxhighlight lang="turtle">
 :p1
      a       :Person ;
      :has_membership _:membership_12345 .
 _:membership_12345
      a       :Membership ;
      :committee :c1;
      :nominated_by :p2 .
</syntaxhighlight>