Re: DELETE and blank nodes

On 3 Mar 2010, at 14:23, Ivan Herman wrote:
>
> On 2010-3-3 15:02 , Steve Harris wrote:
>> On 3 Mar 2010, at 12:26, Ivan Herman wrote:
>> ...
>>>> == My Opinion ==
>>>>
>>>> While I'm sympathetic to Sandro's use case, I'm frightened of the  
>>>> fact
>>>> that:
>>>>
>>>> DELETE { _:b1 :p :o } WHERE { }
>>>> and
>>>> DELETE { ?b1 :p :o } WHERE { }
>>>>
>>>> do dramatically different things. Because of this, I'd rather we  
>>>> go with
>>>> the first proposal and prohibit blank nodes in the DELETE template
>>>> entirely.
>>>
>>> I think Sandro's use case is important. Eg, this is the only way  
>>> we can
>>> manipulate, via SPARQL UPDATE, RDF graphs encoding OWL constructs  
>>> or, if
>>> Sandro's RIF-in-RDF encoding is done, RIF rules. With entailment  
>>> regimes
>>> around the corner, I think this is important. (And yes, as you  
>>> say, the
>>> restriction on non-named blank nodes is difficult to justify.)
>>
>> One possibility, which I shied away from mentioning before because  
>> it's
>> probably a hornets nest, is to change the definition of (0 1 2) to
>> produce non-*-projected variables, instead of bNodes. I think this  
>> will
>> be compatible with the semantics of SPARQL 1.0, but wouldn't swear  
>> to it.
>>
>> This means that DELETE WHERE { :x :p (0 1 2) } would expand to  
>> something
>> like:
>>
>> DELETE {
>>  :x :p ?tmp3 .
>>  ?tmp1 rdf:first 2 .
>>  ?tmp1 rdf:rest rdf:nil .
>>  ?tmp2 rdf:first 1 .
>>  ?tmp2 rdf:rest ?tmp1 .
>>  ?tmp3 rdf:first 0 .
>>  ?tmp3 rdf:rest ?tmp2 .
>> }
>> WHERE {
>>  :x :p ?tmp3 .
>>  ?tmp1 rdf:first 2 .
>>  ?tmp1 rdf:rest rdf:nil .
>>  ?tmp2 rdf:first 1 .
>>  ?tmp2 rdf:rest ?tmp1 .
>>  ?tmp3 rdf:first 0 .
>>  ?tmp3 rdf:rest ?tmp2 .
>> }
>>
>> Which I believe would delete the list.
>
> yes, that would work but, oh boy!, it is ugly:-)

That expansion is equivalent to what the store would do, the user  
would use the () syntax.

>> More complex things like:
>>
>> DELETE {
>>  :x :p (0 1 2) .
>> }
>> WHERE {
>>  :x :q (3 4 5) .
>> }
>>
>> Aren't going to work, you'd have to write them in full, but I don't  
>> see
>> any way round that.
>
> But what does it mean "writing them in full"? The other alternative of
> Lee is to prohibit blank nodes in the DELETE template, ie, one cannot
> have a list.

I think it can, just not expressed using SPARQL "bNodes".

Writing out in full, is like the machine conversion above, I agree  
it's not very user-friendly.

- Steve

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Received on Wednesday, 3 March 2010 16:41:51 UTC