Comments on SPARQL 1.1 Update (4)

This comment is about the design of the update language syntax, not the 
document itself.

In Turtle and N-triples, simple concatenation of files (except for 
implicit base IRI in Turtle and local bNode naming) results in a single, 
combined data file that is legal Turtle / N-Triples.  The thing in 
Turtle that makes this possible is that @prefix and @base can appear 
anywhere between triple specifications and defines prefixes or base IRI 
from that point on in the file.  This isn't a widely used feature as far 
as I know but it's useful at times.

SPARQL Update does not have this property.  Currently, the prologue of 
BASE and PREFIX must be the first thing in the request.

For query, where one query per request (file or POST) is the only 
supported form, it makes no difference.

For update, there can be several update operations per request, so 
assembling them from fragments in different files by simple 
concatentation might be useful.

This is more important for update since one request should be atomic so 
the composition of fragments is atomic.

Is it worth making this change to the grammar while we still can?  I 
don't see any downside at the moment.

 Andy

Received on Friday, 3 September 2010 10:31:19 UTC