Re: Review of "SPARQL 1.1 Update"

On 11/01/2010 11:20 AM, Steve Harris wrote:
> On 9 Jan 2010, at 19:17, Andy Seaborne wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That seems visually like two statements to me. Some SQL systems use
>>>>>> ; to
>>>>>> separate statements too, and it's familiar to programmers of
>>>>>> C-derived
>>>>>> languages.
>>>>>
>>>>> Makes sense. So do we tack a [ ';' ] to the end of the expression?
>>>
>>> Seems good to me.
>>>
>>>> Not overloading DELETE would work now we have not got a short-form of
>>>> INSERT and the multiple use of DELETE and INSERT with one WHERE.
>>>
>>> I think I'd find the overloaded form much easier to remember. There's no
>>> particular reason why REMOVE is not allowed to take a WHERE, but
>>> DELETE is.
>>>
>>> It's especially arbitrary around the DELETE WHERE { } syntactic shortcut
>>> as opposed to REMOVE { }.
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>
>> I think that introducing ";" for all operations because this one short
>> form needs it is not balanced so I'm keen to find a way to avoid that
>> necessity.
>
> Ah, I was thinking that the last ; would be optional, like . and triples.
>
> - Steve

I was assuming that also.  It's that every (multi-operation) sequence 
now needs to have ";"s when the syntax issue is confined to the 
abbreviated short form of DELETE that strikes me as not ideal.

I also think that multiple operations in one request will not be 
uncommon.  Basic data loading might be commonly one operation although 
surely much of the need for SPARQL Update Language is for those 
operations not done by the HTTP update style.  It will include things 
like ensuring graphs exist before other operations happen.

	Andy

Received on Monday, 11 January 2010 11:57:51 UTC