Re: Lightweight Java RDF libraries

There's Scardf, a simple project both in terms of API and codebase size.  It
can be used standalone, or as a wrapper for the Jena API.  Standalone, it
only depends on Joda-time (which you might want in your project, anyways).

It's written in Scala, though I'm pretty sure you can use it from regular
Java too.  A simple Java wrapper could be written for it if some of the
method names turn out to be hairy in Java.

I use it standalone myself for testing, command-line tools, simple apps,
etc, and then swap the backend for Jena on fancier things.

http://code.google.com/p/scardf/

-Leif Warner

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Norman Gray <norman@astro.gla.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> Greetings.
>
> Can anyone point me towards a simple/lightweight Java RDF library?
>
> Here, I mean 'lightweight' in the sense of having a small API, rather than
> a small jar, because if one is trying to persuade people that RDF is a
> useful and practical thing, then hauling out a manual which could crush a
> small donkey is a difficult place to start.  I want an RDF gateway
> drug^Wlibrary.
>
> All I really want to be able to (demonstrate I can) do is to read and write
> RDF/XML and Turtle, create triples, and iterate through a graph.   Simple
> inference I wouldn't say no to, but wouldn't need; and SPARQL would be
> unnecessary for the scope and userbase I have in mind.
>
> Ideally, I'd like to be able to say "here is a little jar to put on your
> classpath, and here is a webpage with a few examples which make simple
> things simple; have fun".
>
> Jena I've used a lot, and like, but ... well, see remarks about maltreated
> donkeys above.  Sesame I've used less, but it's still a
> four-types-of-batteries included solution.
>
> JRDF <http://jrdf.sourceforge.net/> is I think intended to be small, but
> looking at its documentation, it seems to have become fuller-featured over
> time.  Also, it's marked as 'inactive', which is nudging one away from using
> it for new projects.
>
> rdf2go looks attractive, and seems to be aimed in part at the same
> semweb-sceptical userbase.  But as an abstraction layer over other triple
> stores, it fails my 'one jar' goal.
>
> I imagine it would be possible to try to extract some some sort of
> bare-bones Jena subset, but I can't help thinking that would be quite a lot
> of work (I haven't looked at the feasibility in any detail).
>
> Yes, disk space is cheap, and yes, I can' just write a "primer for
> sceptics" set of examples, but if there's a bare-bones librarylet knocking
> around, that I haven't found, then I'd like to use it, and I imagine the LOD
> list would know of it.
>
> Thanks for any pointers.
>
> All the best,
>
> Norman
>
>
> --
> Norman Gray  :  http://nxg.me.uk
> SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK
>
>
>