Type designators

You can assign a slot in your schema “type designator” status by setting designates_type to true.

This means that the slot can be used to designate the type of an instance.

For example, in the following schema, the type slot is a type designator for the Organization class:

classes:
  Organization:
    attributes:
      name:
      type:
        designates_type: true
        range: string
  Business:
    is_a: Organization
  EducationalOrganization:
    is_a: Organization
   ...

This means that if the type slot is present in data for an instance of a class Organization, then the value of the type slot MUST be either “Organization” or any of the transitive subclasses (by following is_a or mixins).

Additionally, if the instance instantiates a more specific class of Organization, this must be consistent with the value of the type slot. The value of the type slot must be in the set of reflexive descendants or ancestors of the instantiated class.

The type designator can also be used to infer the instantiated class. For example, an instance i that instantiated Organization in the above schema with a type value of Business would be inferred to be an instance of Business.

Type designators can also be assigned to multivalued slots. In this case the same rules apply for each value of the slot. When performing inference, the most specific class is chosen.

In the above example, the range of the type designator is string. It could also be uri, curie, or uriorcurie, in which case it should match value of the class_uri field normalized to the appropriate form.