ANN: New working draft: SPARQL Query Language for RDF

There is a new working draft for the SPARQL query language.

This version:
     http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-query-20050419/
Latest version:
     http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/


Some of the major changes are:

1/ syntax of triple patterns in the the language has been made similar to Turtle 
and N3.

2/ Turtle-style RDF collections now supported which leads to ...

3/ blank nodes can appear in graph patterns - they are matched as variables, not 
as terms in the data graphs.

4/ FROM/FROM NAMED

NB the specific use of FROM has changed from the Feb05 working draft.

If you have been following working group discussions, you may have seem these 
were removed after the Feb/Mar face-to-face meeting.  On balance, the working 
group decided there is a role for these in the query language because queries 
are not always issued via the SPARQL protocol.

This went in quite late and is not numbered in the working draft properly.  It's 
"section N".

5/ ORDER BY

A design for sorting, limit and offset has been added.  There is an explicit 
stage of converting pattern matches into a sequence of solutions before query 
result form processing.

6/ Reification syntax removed: there was insufficient support and the actual 
proposal enabled some expressions that were confusing, at best, and bad usage 
patterns at worst.

7/ "CONSTRUCT *" short form removed - it does not extend to RDF datasets

There are many other changes throughout the document - many of these are in 
response to comments on this list and from the community at large.  Thank you.

This working draft is a snapshot and there are still many comments that are 
still to be worked through.  However, with the many changes already made, 
especially syntax, the working group decided to publish a snapshot now, and not 
wait as people may end out commenting on old material.

 Andy & Eric : editors
 on behalf of the working group

Received on Friday, 22 April 2005 16:03:13 UTC