Examines the different SPARQL query forms to tease out their uses and applications

1. SPARQL Query Forms Leigh Dodds, Oxford SWIG, March 2008 Photo Credit: Glen Bowman

2. Why are there 4 SPARQL Query Forms? SPARQL Use Cases doesn’t help very much…

4. What are they for?

5. SELECT Equivalent to SQL SELECT Returns a nice, regular table

6. SELECT PREFIX table: <http://www.daml.org/2003/01/periodictable/PeriodicTable#> SELECT ?name ?weight WHERE { ?element table:name ?name; table:atomicWeight ?weight. } ORDER BY DESC(?weight) LIMIT 10

7. ASK Returns a true/false value Is there data that looks like this ? Do you have any information about that ?

8. ASK PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> ASK WHERE { ?person a foaf:Person ; foaf:mbox <mailto:leigh@ldodds.com>. } (SPARQL equivalent of a vanity search!)

9. CONSTRUCT Returns an RDF graph Extract a specific subset of the queried data I want this , this , and this

10. CONSTRUCT PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> CONSTRUCT { ?friend a foaf:Person; foaf:name ?name; foaf:homepage ?home. } WHERE { ?person foaf:mbox <mailto:leigh@ldodds.com>; foaf:knows ?friend. ?friend foaf:name ?name; foaf:homepage ?home. }

11. DESCRIBE Returns an RDF graph Tell me about this or things that look like this … but you decide what’s relevant

12. DESCRIBE PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> DESCRIBE ?friend WHERE { ?person foaf:mbox “mailto:leigh@ldodds.com”; foaf:knows ?friend. }

13. Applied Uses Beyond the basics

14. DESCRIBE for Prototyping DESCRIBE <http://example.org/someResource> Quickly assembling UIs Web APIs

15. SELECT for Indexing Building an ordering over some data ORDER BY, LIMIT

16. CONSTRUCT for Transformation … and also simple inferencing CONSTRUCT could be the XSLT of RDF Currently limited by lack of expressions in CONSTRUCT triple templates

17. CONSTRUCT for Transformation PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> PREFIX ex: <http://www.example.org/blogger/> CONSTRUCT { ?person a ex:Blogger. } WHERE { ?person foaf:weblog ?blog. }

18. SPARQL for Validation XSLT can be used for XML Validation (Schematron) SPARQL can be used for RDF Validation

19. Validation – ASK * ASK WHERE { #triple patterns that you don’t want to find } *Source: Talis Platform Field Predicate Map Validation

20. Validation – CONSTRUCT * CONSTRUCT { #some error message or data } WHERE { #triple patterns that you don’t want to find } *Source: Alistair Miles, Schemarama 2 Jena 2 Validation Support

21. In Combination?

22. The ADC Pattern ASK – DESCRIBE – CONSTRUCT Probe endpoint Grab default view of data Refine data extraction and/or apply transformation

23. Questions?