Ontology Update Introduction

The Ontology Update service is used to update an OWL ontology that already exists within an OSF Web Service instance.

This Web service is a wrapper over the OWLAPI ontology library. It wraps all the needed functionality related to updating an ontology. Most of the related API has been implemented. Essentially, this service (along with its other related services) turns the OWLAPI into a Web service API.

The Ontology Update service may be used to create new entities or update existing ones within an already created ontology (see Ontology Create). If the entity already exists, it will get updated; if it does not exist, it will be created and get added. These entities may include classes, properties or named individuals for the existing ontology.

Developers communicate with the Ontology Update Web service using the HTTP POST method. You may request one of the following mime types: (1) text/xml, (2) application/rdf+xml, (3) application/rdf+n3 or (4) application/json. The content returned by the Web service is serialized using the mime type requested and the data returned depends on the parameters selected.