ANN: LDPath - a path-based query language for querying the Linked Data Cloud

Dear all,

I am proud to announce the availability of our path query language LDPath as Open Source query language for Linked Data. For example, you could select the names of all friends of a person using the following path statement:

    foaf:knows / foaf:name :: xsd:string

The full language is documented (more or less) at http://code.google.com/p/ldpath/wiki/PathLanguage .

You can download LDPath at the project website at:

http://code.google.com/p/ldpath/

LDPath is a simple path-based query language similar to XPath or SPARQL Property Paths that is particularly well-suited for querying and retrieving resources from the Linked Data Cloud by following RDF links between resources and servers. The LDPath project is a collection of generic libraries that are independent of the underlying RDF implementation. Currently, there are backends for Sesame, for RDF files, and for Linked Data. You can easily implement your own backends by implementing a straightforward interface (RDFBackend).

LDPath can serve many different purposes. It can e.g. serve as
* a simple query language for selecting nodes or values in your own triple store programmatically from Java
* a query language for transparently querying resources in the Linked Data Cloud and following links between datasets
* a foundation for templating languages to render results based on RDF or Linked Data
* a foundation for building a semantic search index (used e.g. in the Linked Media Framework and in Apache Stanbol)
* a query language for experimenting with the Linked Data Cloud

LDPath is obviously not the only implementation of a (path-based) query language for RDF or Linked Data. But we still thought it might be useful, as it is easier than SPARQL for novice users or simple tasks, and it is more in-line with the way resources in the Linked Data Cloud are accessed. 

LDPath has currently been integrated in our Linked Media Framework (as a means to configure Semantic Search) and in the Apache Stanbol project (for querying the cached data).

If you want to try out the language, you can download one of the standalone jar packages. If you want to use it inside your own project, feel free to use our Maven repository to access the individual modules as dependencies.

In case you encounter problems or have suggestions, feel free to contact us ;-)

Greetings,

Sebastian
-- 
| Dr. Sebastian Schaffert          sebastian.schaffert@salzburgresearch.at
| Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft  http://www.salzburgresearch.at
| Head of Knowledge and Media Technologies Group          +43 662 2288 423
| Jakob-Haringer Strasse 5/II
| A-5020 Salzburg

Received on Thursday, 1 December 2011 12:23:28 UTC