ProjectExpressions without concat

Kjetil was concerned since fn:concat wasn't supported yet in standard 
SPARQL. An alternative would be to resort to something else, like e.g. 
STR():

e.g.

    CONSTRUCT { ?x ex:mailstring STR(?mbox) . }
    WHERE { ?x foaf:mbox ?mbox }

or (using subqueries)

    CONSTRUCT { ?x ex:mailstring ?m . }
    WHERE {
      { SELECT ?x, STR(?mbox) AS ?m
        ?x foaf:mbox ?mbox
      }

but I am quite unsure... is there anyone supporting this?

I suggest, in the absence of better options

i) to mention (if implemented) Option 1) first, or alternatively Option 
4) with reference to XSPARQL
and then

ii) We may also want to mention Option 3) as an alternative, with a 
backward-reference to the section on subqueries. Not sure who implements 
both  XPath F&O (i.e. fn:concat) and subqueries, but you could leave a 
TODO there. Anyways, a reference to XPath F&O [XPath-Functions] should 
IMO be added in the references.


[XPath-Functions] XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, A. 
Malhotra, J. Melton, N. Walsh (Editors), W3C Recommendation, World Wide 
Web Consortium, 23 January 2007, 
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xpath-functions-20070123/. Latest version 
available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/.



Axel Polleres wrote:
> Seaborne, Andy wrote:
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: public-rdf-dawg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-rdf-dawg-
>>> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Steve Harris
>>> Sent: 15 June 2009 12:07
>>> To: Kjetil Kjernsmo
>>> Cc: public-rdf-dawg@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: Requesting input for the Features and Rational document
>>>
>>> On 10 Jun 2009, at 09:42, Kjetil Kjernsmo wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Thursday 04 June 2009 08:46:29 Lee Feigenbaum wrote:
>>>>>> * ProjectExpression needs a better description and motivation.
>>>>>> We feel that the mention of XSLT is not very relevant, as
>>>>>> assigning a
>>>>>> name automatically, like some engines do now, is sufficient for
>>>>>> XSLT.
>>>>>> It should also be motivated by showing why it is required by other
>>>>>> features.
>>>>> I took a stab at this at
>>>>> http://www.w3.org/2009/sparql/wiki/Feature:ProjectExpressions
>>>> As discussed on the teleconf yesterday, it needs better examples
>>>> too. It
>>>> doesn't sound like the examples are actually executeable as it is
>>>> now, and
>>>> they should be. Also, it is also a good thing if they do not rely on
>>>> other
>>>> features that we do not yet have, such as concat().
>>>>
>>>> It is good to have both SELECT and CONSTRUCT examples.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone have a stab at this?
>>>   CONSTRUCT { ?x foaf:name (concat(?fn, " ", ?sn)) . }
>>
>> Can we adopt F&O naming here?  It's "fn:concat"
>> Tricky - () looks awfully like a list to a parser.  Especially if the 
>> function is named by URI.
> 
> Indeed....
> 
> 
> Option 1)
>> Suggestion: off the top of my head: ?(expr)
>>
>>    CONSTRUCT { ?x foaf:name $(fn:concat(?fn, " ", ?sn)) . }
>>
>> Not necessary beautiful but it will work.
> 
> Option 2) another options here is to leave it without extra syntax, but 
> add a TODO mentioning that
> 
>     fn:concat(?fn, " ", ?sn)
> 
>    is problematic for parsers due to the similarity with list notation.
>    I.e.
> 
> TODO: Note that expressions such as fn:concat(?fn, " ", ?sn) are 
> potentially problematic for parsers due to their similariy with the 
> shortcut notation for 
> [http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/#collections RDF Collections]
> 
> Option 3) is actually the subselect, i.e. the complete corrected example:
> 
>  CONSTRUCT { ?x foaf:name ?concat . }
>  WHERE {
>    { SELECT ?x fn:concat(?fn, " ", ?sn) AS ?concat
>      WHERE { ?x foaf:firstName ?fn ; foaf:family_name ?sn . }
>    }
>  }
> 
> 
> Are Options 1) or 2) implemented anywhere?
> 
> 
> Option 4)
> If you look for something which is implemented, we have an
> implementation for a slightly different version of Option 1) in XSPARQL 
> [1]:
> 
>    CONSTRUCT { ?x foaf:name {fn:concat(?fn, " ", ?sn)} . }
>    WHERE { ?x foaf:firstName ?fn ; foaf:family_name ?sn . }
> 
>  I had, BTW, Option 2 implemented in some preliminary,
> experimental parser for dlvhex-sparql [2], but basically at the
> cost of sacrificing the collection shortcut notation.
> 
> best,
> Axel
> 
> 1. http://xsparql.deri.org/
> For the example see: 
> http://xsparql.deri.org/spec/xsparql-language-specification.html#fig:rdf2rdf_xsparql 
> 
> Implementation:
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=243296
> 
> 
> 2. Axel Polleres, François Scharffe, and Roman Schindlauer. SPARQL++ for 
> mapping between RDF vocabularies. In OTM 2007, Part I : Proceedings of 
> the 6th International Conference on Ontologies, DataBases, and 
> Applications of Semantics (ODBASE 2007), volume 4803 of Lecture Notes in 
> Computer Science, pages 878-896, Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, November 
> 2007. Springer.
> 
>> This is a place where explicit assignment would be useful syntax.
>>
>>>   WHERE { ?x foaf:firstName ?fn ; foaf:family_name ?sn . }
>>>
>>> As a projection it would be something like:
>>>
>>>   CONSTRUCT { ?x foaf:name ?concat . }
>>>   WHERE {
>>>     { SELECT ?x, concat(?fn, " ", ?sn) AS ?concat
>>
>> SELECT ?x fn:concat....
>>
>> (no comma - comma in SELECT lists are in the time permitting query 
>> language syntax.
>>
>>>     WHERE { ?x foaf:firstName ?fn ; foaf:family_name ?sn . } }
>>>   }
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>
>>     Andy
>>
> 
> 


-- 
Dr. Axel Polleres
Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, 
Galway
email: axel.polleres@deri.org  url: http://www.polleres.net/

Received on Monday, 15 June 2009 22:28:52 UTC