Re: RDF+Transformation = XHTML or is there sth like inverse GRDDL?

On 4 Jul 2007, at 13:18, Jacek Kopecky wrote:

>
> Hi Andreas, Danny, all,
>
> I've tried SPARQL+XSLT, not to HTML, but to app-dependent XML.
> My experience was that it's a limited approach. In this longish post
> I first talk about my experience, then about my XSLT-based solution  
> and
> then about what I would see as an optimal solution.
>
> So the idea was: use SPARQL SELECT to get the data that you need  
> and put
> them in the XML variable binding results table (which may have been  
> the
> wrong choice), then use XSLT to transform that to the target XML.
> The necessary SPARQL results table vocabulary, however, made the XSLT
> basically write-only, you wouldn't want to read or maintain such a
> beast.
>
> Another problem is with repeating structures in the target XML. Let's
> say I want to create something like this intentionally trivial XML:
>
> <catalog>
>   <product id="1">
>     <part name="wheel"/>
>     <part name="engine"/>
>     <part name="chassis"/>
>   </product>
>   <product id="2">
>     <part name="antenna"/>
>     <part name="receiver"/>
>   </product>
> </catalog>
>
> The SPARQL could be
>
> SELECT ?prodid ?partname
>> WHERE { ?prodid rdf:type Product ;
>>                 hasPart ?partName . }
>
> But the results table will be:
>
>         1  wheel
>         1  engine
>         1  chassis
>         2  antenna
>         2  receiver

I've run into this problem a lot as well. I can imagine a SPARQL  
syntax extension like:

SELECT DISTINCT ?prodid ?partname
WHERE { ?prodid rdf:type :Product ;
                 :hasPart ?partName . }
GROUP BY ?prodid

which could return something like:
...
<result>
   <binding name="prodid"><literal>1</literal></binding>
   <binding name="partname">
      <literal>wheel</literal>
      <literal>engine</literal>
      <literal>chassis</literal>
   </binding>
</result>
...

If you have it in that form it's a lot easier to do the kind of XSLT  
transforms we're talking about.

That sort of trick may catch SQL users off-guard, it might be worth  
writing ARRAY(?partname) or similar. I think it would be pretty handy  
given the random and surprising cardinality that RDF predicates often  
have in the wild though.

- Steve

Received on Wednesday, 4 July 2007 13:18:25 UTC