Re: W3C Data Cube spec uses SPARQL too

On 8/6/2014 20:40, Dave Reynolds wrote:
> a. Strictly SPARQL wasn't sufficient on its own without some 
> surrounding control machinery. Rules IC-20 and IC-21 are SPARQL 
> templates - you run one query then for each result from that query you 
> instantiate the template, then run all the resulting template instances.

If I understand the problem correctly, IC-21 needs to walk a transitive 
path (*), and the issue is that SPARQL 1.1 path expressions can not 
contain variables. If this is correct, then I believe you could express 
this scenario with a recursive user-defined SPIN function [1]. The 
SELECT would become an inner select, and you would replace the FILTER 
NOT EXISTS with something like FILTER ex:myHelperFunction(?list, ?p) 
where ex:myHelperFunction would have an ASK query as its body that would 
call itself (or another helper function) recursively. Still not trivial, 
but I believe SPIN can help here because it extends the expressivity of 
SPARQL. We have used SPIN in similar ways in the past, e.g. to overcome 
problems with pre-bound variables in nested selects.

> b. This is not a human readable way to communicate the constraints. 
> Even the simple cases require thought to interpret, IC-12 and IC-17 
> are seriously confusing [1].

Again, user-defined SPIN functions can make these queries easier to read 
and maintain. You can refactor any complex snippet into a helper 
function with a suitable name, and then there is potential for code reuse.

Maybe this would address some of your concerns.

Holger

[1] 
http://composing-the-semantic-web.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/understanding-spin-functions.html

Received on Thursday, 7 August 2014 01:50:07 UTC