Ontology OWL API java

Question

I am taking this Data Based Knowledge class, and I am trying to figure it out how to install first OWL API. First, I create a .owl file in Protege. My teacher told us we have to write a small Java program that reads our .owl file. He told us to include the OWL API; he did not give any instructions and any lectures about OWL API. Do you know how I can install the OWL API is very confusing? And if there is any good tutorial out there that explains how to implement an .owl file into a Java program?

Thanks

Answer 1

An .owl file is simply a text file, usually XML.

The OWL API is a library, so you do not need to install it, but simply download it and put it in the classpath for your Java class (I assume you're familiar with Java).

It can be downloaded here: http://search.maven.org/#artifactdetails%7Cnet.sourceforge.owlapi%7Cowlapi-osgidistribution%7C4.0.0%7Cbundle

There is documentation and tutorials here:

https://github.com/owlcs/owlapi/wiki/Documentation

Support is available on GitHub (simply raise an issue here: https://github.com/owlcs/owlapi/issues ) and on the OWLAPI mailing list (details on the documentation page).

Answer 2

If you are using Maven then use the following dependency in pom.xml and run mvn install to get all the libraries.

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>net.sourceforge.owlapi</groupId>
        <artifactId>owlapi-distribution</artifactId>
        <version>5.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Before diving into creating an owl file yourself, try using existing owl files to understand the format and owlapi itself. For e.g. http://www.workingontologist.org/Examples/Chapter3/shakespeare.owl or https://protege.stanford.edu/ontologies/pizza/pizza.owl OWLAPI does not have good documentation on latest releases so one has to dig into the javadocs to see if the interfaces match their requirements.

Tutorials give you some insight on the way things are done. http://owlapi.sourceforge.net/owled2011_tutorial.pdf & http://owlapi.sourceforge.net/SKB-SemTech-OWLAPI-6up.pdf