RDF-star and SPARQL-star

Draft Community Group Report

Latest editor's draft:
https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/cg-spec/editors_draft.html
Test suite:
https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/tests/
Implementation report:
https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/reports/
Editors:
Olaf Hartig (Linköping University)
Pierre-Antoine Champin (ERCIM)
Gregg Kellogg (no affiliation)
Andy Seaborne (Apache Software Foundation)
Authors:
Dörthe Arndt (TU Dresden)
Jeen Broekstra (metaphacts)
Bob DuCharme (CCRi)
Peter F. Patel-Schneider (PARC)
Eric Prud'hommeaux (Janeiro Digital, W3C/MIT)
Ted Thibodeau, Jr. (OpenLink Software, Inc.)
Bryan Thompson (Amazon)
Participate:
GitHub w3c/rdf-star
File a bug
Commit history
Pull requests
Contributors
James Anderson (datagraph gmbh)
Ghislain Atemezing (Mondeca)
Pavel Klinov (Stardog Union)
Holger Knublauch (TopQuadrant, Inc.)
Andreas Kuckartz
Ora Lassila (Amazon)
William Van Woensel (Dalhousie University)
Latest published version
https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/cg-spec/

Abstract

TODO

Status of This Document

This is a preview

Do not attempt to implement this version of the specification. Do not reference this version as authoritative in any way. Instead, see https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/cg-spec/editors_draft.html for the Editor's draft.

This specification was published by the RDF-DEV Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track. Please note that under the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) there is a limited opt-out and other conditions apply. Learn more about W3C Community and Business Groups.

GitHub Issues are preferred for discussion of this specification. Alternatively, you can send comments to our mailing list. Please send them to public-rdf-star@w3.org (subscribe, archives).

1. Introduction

1.1 Background and Motivation

This section is non-normative.

TODO, citing [RDF-STAR-FOUNDATION]

1.2 Overview

This section is non-normative.

The RDF data model lets you state facts in three-part subject-predicate-object statements known as triples. For example, with a single RDF triple you can say that employee38 has a familyName of "Smith". A triple's predicate is a property specified with an IRI (an Internationalized version of a URI), identifying that property in a globally unambiguous way. A triple's subject and object can each be an IRI referencing any entity, and the object can also be a literal value such as "Smith" or data of other types such as dates, numbers, or Boolean values.

Sometimes, we want the subject or object of a triple to refer to another triple. For example, the statement "according to employee22, employee38 has a jobTitle of 'Assistant Designer'" can be modeled as a triple with "according to" as its predicate, employee22 as its object, and another triple as its subject, namely the triple "employee38 has a jobTitle of 'Assistant Designer'". This use of a triple as the subject or object resource of another triple so that we can say things about that triple is known as reification. The concept of reification has always been part of RDF, but expressing it in RDF concrete syntaxes such as Turtle, N-Triples, and RDF/XML, as well as processing or querying it with SPARQL, has been verbose and cumbersome.

This specification describes RDF-star, an extension of RDF's conceptual data model and concrete syntaxes, providing a more compact form of reification. This model and syntaxes enable the creation of concise triples that reference other triples as subject and object resources. Triples that include a triple as a subject or an object are known as RDF-star triples. The following dataset shows the example RDF-star triples from above using the Turtle-star syntax, which uses double angle brackets to enclose a triple serving as a subject or object resource:

@prefix :    <http://www.example.org/> .

:employee38 :familyName "Smith" .
<< :employee38 :jobTitle "Assistant Designer" >> :accordingTo :employee22 .

After declaring a prefix so that IRIs can be abbreviated, the first triple in this example asserts that employee38 has a familyName of "Smith". Note that this dataset does not assert that employee38 has a jobTitle of "Assistant Designer"; it says that employee22 has made that claim. In other words, the triple "employee38 has a jobTitle of 'Assistant Designer'" is not what we call an asserted triple, like "employee38 has a familyName of 'Smith'" above; rather, it is known as an embedded triple.

If we added the triple :employee38 :jobTitle "Assistant Designer" below the triple about employee22's claim in the example above, then this triple about employee38's jobTitle would be both an embedded triple and an asserted one. This pattern is quite common, so Turtle-star offers a dedicated syntax for it, called the annotation syntax, illustrated in Example 2 below. Note that this construct is purely syntactic sugar, as it can be expanded using only the double angle brackets.

@prefix :    <http://www.example.org/> .

:employee38
    :familyName "Smith" ;
    :jobTitle "Assistant Designer" {| :accordingTo :employee22 |} .

# this is equivalent to:
#
# :employee38
#     :familyName "Smith" ;
#     :jobTitle "Assistant Designer" .
# << :employee38 :jobTitle "Assistant Designer" >> :accordingTo :employee22 .

This specification also describes an extension to the SPARQL Protocol and Query Language known as SPARQL-star for the querying of RDF-star triples. For example, the following SPARQL-star query asks "who has made any claims about employee38?"

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/> 

SELECT ?claimer WHERE {
   ?claimer :claims << :employee38 ?property ?value >>
}

SPARQL query triple patterns that include a triple pattern as a subject or object are known as SPARQL-star triple patterns.

Issue 93: annotation-syntax example in the overview/primer part

The overview/primer part of the report should also contain an example that highlights the availability of the annotation syntax (not only on the data-level but also on the query-level).

Issue 94: SPARQL-star update example in the overview/primer part

The overview/primer part of the report should also contain an example that hints at the fact that the spec also covers updates.

For the remainder of this document, examples will assume that the following prefixes have been declared to represent the IRIs shown with them here:

:<http://www.example.org/>
rdf:http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
rdfs:<http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
owl:<http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#>
prov:<http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#>
dc:<http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>
dct:<http://purl.org/dc/terms/>

1.3 Conformance

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

The key words MAY, MUST, and MUST NOT in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Issue 3: Do we need more things in the 'conformance' section? laterprocess

For the moment, we only have the boilerplate text generated by respec.

2. Concepts and Abstract Syntax

In the following, we introduce a number of definitions specific to SPARQL-star, which rely on the following notions (extending some of them) defined in RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax [RDF11-CONCEPTS]: blank node, default graph, graph name, IRI, literal, named graphs, object, predicate, RDF dataset, RDF graph, RDF triple, and subject

An RDF-star graph is a set of RDF-star triples.

An RDF-star triple is a 3-tuple defined recursively as follows:

As for RDF triples, we call the 3 components of an RDF-star triple its subject, predicate and object, respectively. From the definitions above, it follows that any RDF graph is also an RDF-star graph. Note also that, by definition, an RDF-star triple cannot contain itself and cannot be nested infinitely.

IRIs, literals, blank nodes and RDF-star triples are collectively known as RDF-star terms.

For every RDF-star triple t, we define its constituent terms (or simply constituents) as the set containing its subject, its predicate, its object, plus all the constituent terms of its subject and/or its object if they are themselves RDF-star triples. By extension, we define the constituent terms of an RDF-star graph to be the union set of the constituent terms of all its triples.

Consider the following RDF-star triple (represented in Turtle-star):
<< _:a :name "Alice" >> :statedBy :bob.
Its set of constituent terms comprises the IRIs :name, :statedBy, :bob, the blank node _:a, the literal "Alice", and the triple << _:a :name "Alice" >>.

An RDF-star triple used as the subject or object of another RDF-star triple is called an embedded triple. An RDF-star triple that is an element of an RDF-star graph is called an asserted triple. Note that, in a given RDF-star graph, the same triple MAY be both embedded and asserted.

An RDF-star dataset is a collection of RDF-star graphs, and comprises:

Again, this definition is an extension of the notion of RDF dataset, hence it follows that any RDF dataset is also an RDF-star dataset.

2.1 Triples and occurrences

This section is non-normative.

According to the definitions above, an RDF-star triple is an abstract entity whose identity is entirely defined by its subject, predicate, and object. Conversely, given three RDF-star terms s, p, and o, there is exactly and only one RDF-star triple with subject s, predicate p, and object o. This unique triple (s, p, o) can be embedded as the subject or object of multiple other triples, but must be assumed to represent the same thing everywhere it occurs, just like the same IRI p is assumed to represent the same thing everywhere it occurs.

In some situations, however, it might be necessary to distinguish the occurrences of a triple in different graphs. Consider the following sentence: "The triple <http://example.org/s> <http://example.org/p> <http://example.org/o> in (the graph represented by) file1.ttl was added by Alice, and the same triple in file2.ttl was added by Bob." Note that the words "same triple" in this sentence may be confusing, because although the triple (as an abstract entity) is the same, its respective occurrences are different things, each within a different file and with a different author (this is known, in philosophy and linguistics, as the type-token distinction). As the embedded triple represents a unique thing, adequately conveying the meaning of the sentence above requires additional nodes for representing the two distinct occurrences. One possible solution is illustrated in the following example (using the Turtle-star concrete syntax described in the next section).

_:a :occurenceOf << :s :p :o >> ;
    :in <file1.ttl> ;
    dct:creator :alice.
_:b :occurenceOf << :s :p :o >> ;
    :in <file2.ttl> ;
    dct:creator :bob.

3. Concrete Syntaxes

This section defines the following concrete syntaxes:

Changes for SPARQL-star are given in § 4.2 Grammar and the changes for the result set formats in § 4.6 Query Result Formats.

3.1 Turtle-star

In this section, we present Turtle-star, an extension of the Turtle format [TURTLE] allowing the representation of RDF-star graphs. For the sake of conciseness, we only describe here the differences between Turtle-star and Turtle.

3.1.1 Grammar

Turtle-star is defined to follow the same grammar as Turtle, except for the EBNF productions specified below, which replace the productions having the same number (if any) in the original grammar.

[8] objectList ::= object annotation? ( ',' object annotation? )*
[10] subject ::= iri | BlankNode | collection | embTriple
[12] object ::= iri | BlankNode | collection | blankNodePropertyList | literal | embTriple
[27t] embTriple ::= '<<' embSubject verb embObject '>>'
[28t] embSubject ::= iri | BlankNode | embTriple
[29t] embObject ::= iri | BlankNode | literal | embTriple
[30t] annotation ::= '{|' predicateObjectList '|}'
Note

As with N-Triples-star, the changes are that subject and object productions have been extended to accept embedded triples, which are described by the new productions 27t to 30t. Note that embedded triples accept a more restricted range of subject and object expressions than asserted triples. Additionally, the objectList production now accepts an optional annotation after each object.

3.1.2 Parsing

A Turtle-star parser is similar to a Turtle parser as defined in Section 7 of the Turtle specification [TURTLE], with an additional item in its state :

Additionally, the curSubject can be bound to any RDF-star term (including an embedded triple).

A Turtle-star document defines an RDF-star graph composed of a set of RDF-star triples. The subject and embSubject productions set the curSubject. The verb production sets the curPredicate. The object and embObject productions set the curObject. Finishing the object production, an RDF-star triple curSubject curPredicate curObject is produced (added to the RDF-star graph).

Beginning the embTriple production records the curSubject and curPredicate. Finishing the embTriple production yields the RDF-star triple curSubject curPredicate curObject and restores the recorded values of curSubject and curPredicate.

Beginning the annotation production records the curSubject and curPredicate, and sets the curSubject to the RDF-star triple curSubject curPredicate curObject. Finishing the annotation production restores the recorded values of curSubject and curPredicate.

All other productions MUST be handled as specified by Section 7 of the Turtle specification [TURTLE], while still applying the changes above recursively.

3.1.2.1 Discussion

This section is non-normative.

This section describes parser behavior when parsing a Turtle-star document that contains embedded triples and annotations.

Consider a Turtle-star document that describes an RDF triple, and also uses that triple as an embedded triple as the subject of another RDF-star triple:

Example 6: Turtle-star embedded triples
@base <http://example.org/> .
@prefix : <#> .
_:a :name "Alice" .
<< _:a :name "Alice" >> :statedBy :bob .

The usual process of parsing a Turtle document applies with the addition of matching the embedded triple << _:a :name "Alice" >> as part of the subject production. The resulting RDF-star graph consists of two RDF-star triples:

  1. (b, http://example.org/#name, "Alice"), where b is a blank node
  2. ((b, http://example.org/#name, "Alice"), http://example.org/#statedBy, http://example.org/#bob/), where b is the same blank node

Because the above example includes the triple (b, http://example.org/#name, "Alice") as an asserted triple, the same RDF-star graph may also be represented by using the Turtle-star annotation syntax as follows:

Example 7: Turtle-star annotated triples
@base <http://example.org/> .
@prefix : <#> .
_:a :name "Alice" {| :statedBy :bob |} .

In this case, the objectList production matches the annotation production on {| :source :bob |} after parsing the object production on "Alice". At this point, the curSubject, curPredicate, and curObject are saved, and a new RDF-star triple _:a :name "Alice" is created and used as curSubject while processing the annotation production.

3.2 TriG-star

This section describes TriG-star, a minimal extension of the TriG format [TRIG] using the same production updates described in § 3.1 Turtle-star.

Note

RDF-star describes embedded triples, which are not necessarily present in any named graph, or within the default graph.

A TriG-star document defines an RDF-star dataset, composed of a single default graph and zero or more named graphs, all of which are RDF-star graphs.

The TriG-star grammar contains exactly the same production updates described in § 3.1.1 Grammar.

TriG-star parsing uses the same updates described in § 3.1.2 Parsing as applied to Section 5 of the TriG specification [TRIG].

Note

As with Turtle-star, the embTriple and annotation are used to set either the curSubject or curObject, and do not directly add the associated embedded triple to curGraph. Subsequent productions which use either curSubject or curObject may result in adding triples to curGraph.

A conforming TriG-star parser MUST parse any valid TriG document and any valid Turtle-star document in addition to the Turtle-star grammar productions contained within a named graph.

3.2.1 Discussion

This section is non-normative.

TriG-star allows the same expressivity as Turtle-star with the addition of allowing embedded triples and annotations within named graphs.

Example 8: TriG-star annotated triples
@base <http://example.org/> .
@prefix : <#> .
:G {
  _:a :name "Alice" {| :statedBy :bob |} .
}

The resulting RDF-star dataset consists of an empty default graph, and a graph named http://example.org/#G with two RDF-star triples:

  1. (b, http://example.org/#name, "Alice"), where b is a blank node
  2. ((b, http://example.org/#name, "Alice"), http://example.org/#statedBy, http://example.org/#bob/), where b is the same blank node

3.3 N-Triples-star

This section describes N-Triples-star, a minimal extension of the N-Triples format [N-TRIPLES] allowing a subject or an object of an RDF-star triple to be an embedded triple.

3.3.1 Grammar

N-Triples-star is defined to follow the same grammar as the N-Triples Grammar, except for the EBNF productions specified below, which replace the productions having the same number (if any) in the original grammar.

[3] subject ::= IRIREF | BLANK_NODE_LABEL | embTriple
[5] object ::= IRIREF | BLANK_NODE_LABEL | literal | embTriple
[7t] embTriple ::= "<<" subject predicate object ">>"
Note

The changes are subject and object productions have been extended to accept embedded triples, which are described by the new production 7.

3.3.2 Parsing

In contrast to [N-TRIPLES], N-Triples-star allows recursion on the subject and object productions.

An N-Triples-star document defines an RDF-star graph composed of a set of RDF-star triples. The triple production produces an RDF-star triple composed of a subject, predicate, and object.

In addition to the Term Constructors defined in [N-TRIPLES], an additional constructor is defined for embTriple of type RDF-star triple defined by the terms constructed for subject, predicate, and object.

All other productions MUST be handled as specified by Section 8.1 of the N-Triples specification [N-TRIPLES], while still applying the changes above recursively.

3.4 N-Quads-star

The [N-QUADS] format is extended to describe the N-Quads-star format using the same production updates described in the N-Triples-star Grammar.

Note

As RDF-star describes embedded triples and not embedded quads, the graphLabel component of an N-Quads statement does not apply to the embTriple component.

An N-Quads-star document defines an RDF-star dataset, composed of a single default graph and zero or more named graphs, all of which are RDF-star graphs.

A conforming N-Quads-star parser MUST parse any valid N-Quads document and additionally parse the subject and object productions from N-Triples-star to generate RDF-star triples which are added to either the default graph or associated named graph, as appropriate.

3.5 Other Concrete Syntaxes

This section is non-normative.

While this document specifies a small number of concrete syntaxes, nothing prevents other concrete syntaxes of RDF-star from being proposed. In particular, syntaxes such as RDF/XML [RDF-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR], and JSON-LD [JSON-LD], could be extended to support RDF-star.

4. SPARQL-star Query Language

This Section introduces SPARQL-star, which is an RDF-star-aware extension of the RDF query language SPARQL [SPARQL11-QUERY]; i.e., SPARQL-star can be used to query RDF-star graphs.

4.1 Initial Definitions

In the following, we introduce a number of SPARQL-star-specific definitions, which rely on the following notions, defined in SPARQL 1.1 Query Language [SPARQL11-QUERY]: RDF term, query variable, triple pattern, property path pattern, property path expression, and solution mapping.

A SPARQL-star triple pattern is a 3-tuple that is defined recursively as follows:

  1. Every SPARQL triple pattern is a SPARQL-star triple pattern;
  2. If t and t' are SPARQL-star triple patterns, x is an RDF term or a query variable, and p is an IRI or a query variable, then (tpx), (xpt), and (tpt') are SPARQL-star triple patterns.

As for RDF-star triples, a SPARQL-star triple pattern MUST NOT contain itself.

A SPARQL-star basic graph pattern (BGP-star) is a set of SPARQL-star triple patterns.

A SPARQL-star property path pattern is a 3-tuple (s,p,o) where

Issue 7: Property path patterns in SPARQL* sparql-star

I have added the definition of a SPARQL* property path pattern into the draft just for the sake of having such a definition. We need to think about whether it is useful to add this to SPARQL*, in which case we need to define the semantics of such SPARQL* property path patterns.

In fact, no matter what we decide, even for standard property path patterns, the semantics may have to be extended to use them over RDF* graphs.

A SPARQL-star solution mapping μ is a partial function from the set of all query variables to the set of all RDF-star terms. The domain of μ, denoted by dom(μ), is the set of query variables for which μ is defined.

Note

The notion of a SPARQL-star solution mapping extends the notion of a standard SPARQL solution mapping; that is, every SPARQL solution mapping is a SPARQL-star solution mapping. However, in contrast to SPARQL solution mappings, SPARQL-star solution mappings may map variables also to RDF-star triples.

All notions related to SPARQL solution mappings carry over naturally to SPARQL-star solution mappings. In particular, the definition of compatibility extends naturally to SPARQL-star solution mappings: two SPARQL-star solution mappings μ1 and μ2 are compatible if, for every variable v that is both in dom(μ1) and in dom(μ2), μ1(v) and μ2(v) are the same RDF-star term. In this case, μ1 ∪ μ2 is also a SPARQL-star solution mapping. Moreover, for any SPARQL-star solution mapping μ we write card[Ω](μ) to denote the cardinality of μ in a multiset Ω of such mappings. Finally, given a BGP-star B and a SPARQL-star solution mapping μ, we write μ(B) to denote the result of replacing every variable v in B for which μ is defined with μ(v).

Next, we aim to carry over the notion of solutions for BGPs to BGP-star. To this end, we first define an auxiliary concept that carries over the notion of an RDF instance mapping [RDF11-MT] to RDF-star.

An RDF-star instance mapping σ is a partial function from the set of all blank nodes to the set of all RDF-star terms. The domain of σ, denoted by dom(σ), is the set of blank nodes for which σ is defined.

Similar to the corresponding notation for solution mappings, for an RDF-star instance mapping σ and a BGP-star B we write σ(B) to denote the result of replacing every blank node b in B for which σ is defined with σ(b).

Now we are ready to define the notion of solution for BGP-star.

Given a BGP-star B and an RDF-star graph G, a SPARQL-star solution mapping μ is a solution for the BGP-star B over G if it has the following two properties

4.2 Grammar

SPARQL-star is defined to follow the same grammar as SPARQL 1.1, except for the EBNF productions specified below, which replace the productions having the same number (if any) in the original grammar. The parts in which these productions differ from the corresponding productions in the original grammar are marked in bold font. Productions [174] and following have been added and have no counterpart in the original grammar.

[65] DataBlockValue ::= EmbTriple | iri | RDFLiteral | NumericLiteral | BooleanLiteral | 'UNDEF'
[75] TriplesSameSubject ::= VarOrTermOrEmbTP PropertyListNotEmpty | TriplesNode PropertyList
[80] Object ::= GraphNode AnnotationPattern?
[81] TriplesSameSubjectPath ::= VarOrTermOrEmbTP PropertyListPathNotEmpty | TriplesNode PropertyListPath
[87] ObjectPath ::= GraphNodePath AnnotationPatternPath?
[104] GraphNode ::= VarOrTermOrEmbTP | TriplesNode
[105] GraphNodePath ::= VarOrTermOrEmbTP | TriplesNodePath
[119] PrimaryExpression ::= BrackettedExpression | BuiltInCall | iriOrFunction | RDFLiteral | NumericLiteral | BooleanLiteral | Var
[121] BuiltInCall ::=
   Aggregate
| 'STR' '(' Expression ')'
| 'LANG' '(' Expression ')'
| 'LANGMATCHES' '(' Expression ')'
| 'DATATYPE' '(' Expression ')'
| 'BOUND' '(' Var ')'
| 'IRI' '(' Expression ')'
| 'URI' '(' Expression ')'
| 'BNODE' ( '(' Expression ')' | NIL )
| 'RAND' NIL
| 'ABS' '(' Expression ')'
| 'CEIL' '(' Expression ')'
| 'FLOOR' '(' Expression ')'
| 'ROUND' '(' Expression ')'
| 'CONCAT' ExpressionList
| 'STRLEN' '(' Expression ')'
| 'UCASE' '(' Expression ')'
| 'LCASE' '(' Expression ')'
| 'ENCODE_FOR_URI' '(' Expression ')'
| 'CONTAINS' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'STRSTARTS' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'STRENDS' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'STRBEFORE' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'STRAFTER' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'YEAR' '(' Expression ')'
| 'MONTH' '(' Expression ')'
| 'DAY' '(' Expression ')'
| 'HOURS' '(' Expression ')'
| 'MINUTES' '(' Expression ')'
| 'SECONDS' '(' Expression ')'
| 'TIMEZONE' '(' Expression ')'
| 'TZ' '(' Expression ')'
| 'NOW' NIL
| 'UUID' NIL
| 'STRUUID' NIL
| 'MD5' '(' Expression ')'
| 'SHA1' '(' Expression ')'
| 'SHA256' '(' Expression ')'
| 'SHA384' '(' Expression ')'
| 'SHA512' '(' Expression ')'
| 'COALESCE' ExpressionList
| 'IF' '(' Expression ',' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'STRLANG' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'STRDT' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'sameTerm' '(' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'isIRI' '(' Expression ')'
| 'isURI' '(' Expression ')'
| 'isBLANK' '(' Expression ')'
| 'isLITERAL' '(' Expression ')'
| 'isNUMERIC' '(' Expression ')'
| 'TRIPLE' '(' Expression ',' Expression ',' Expression ')'
| 'SUBJECT' '(' Expression ')'
| 'PREDICATE' '(' Expression ')'
| 'OBJECT' '(' Expression ')'
| 'isTRIPLE' '(' Expression ')'
[174] EmbTP ::= '<<' EmbSubjectOrObject Verb EmbSubjectOrObject '>>'
[175] EmbTriple ::= '<<' DataValueTerm ( iri | 'a' ) DataValueTerm '>>'
[176] EmbSubjectOrObject ::= Var | BlankNode | iri | RDFLiteral | NumericLiteral | BooleanLiteral | EmbTP
[177] DataValueTerm ::= iri | RDFLiteral | NumericLiteral | BooleanLiteral | EmbTriple
[178] VarOrTermOrEmbTP ::= Var | GraphTerm | EmbTP
[179] AnnotationPattern ::= '{|' PropertyListNotEmpty '|}'
[180] AnnotationPatternPath ::= '{|' PropertyListPathNotEmpty '|}'
[181] ExprEmbTP ::= '<<' ExprVarOrTerm Verb ExprVarOrTerm '>>'
[182] ExprVarOrTerm ::= iri | RDFLiteral | NumericLiteral | BooleanLiteral | Var | ExprEmbTP

This introduces a notation for embedded triple patterns (production [174]), which is similar to the one defined for embedded triples in § 3.1 Turtle-star, but accepting also variables. These embedded triple patterns are allowed in both the subject position ([75], [81]) and the object position ([80], [87]) of SPARQL-star triple patterns, as well as in the short-hand notation for querying collections ([102], [103]).

Additionally, production [65] for values that can be used in the VALUES clause is extended to permit RDF-star triples as possible values, and the set of available built-in functions is extended with the five functions TRIPLE, SUBJECT, PREDICATE, OBJECT, and isTRIPLE ([121]) that are defined in § 4.4 Function Definitions.

Note

As defined for all keywords in SPARQL, the names of the five new built-in functions added by SPARQL-star are matched in a case-insensitive manner.

Yet another extension is that both the Object and the ObjectPath productions now accept an optional annotation pattern after each object. The purpose of this feature is to enable users to use the same kind of annotation syntax that is supported in Turtle-star. As in the case of Turtle-star, the annotation syntax in SPARQL-star is purely syntactic sugar that has to be processed in accordance to the first expansion rule in § 4.3.2 Expand Syntax Forms.

A restriction to the use of the annotation syntax in SPARQL-star exists that is not captured by the grammar as defined above: An AnnotationPatternPath may be added only to SPARQL-star property path patterns in which the property path expression is a PredicatePath (i.e., a single IRI) or the keyword a (as a short form for the IRI rdf:type). Hence, a query such as the following violates this restriction and, thus, is invalid.

SELECT * WHERE {
    ?s :p/:q ?o {| ?pp ?oo |}.
}

While annotation patterns must not be added to property path patterns other than the ones permitted by the restriction above, it is possible to use property path expressions within annotation patterns (but without violating the restriction in the case of nested annotation patterns). For instance, the following query is valid.

SELECT * WHERE {
    ?s ?p ?o {| :p/:q ?oo |}.
}

4.3 Translation to the Algebra

Based on the SPARQL grammar, the SPARQL specification defines the process of converting graph patterns and solution modifiers in a SPARQL query string into a SPARQL algebra expression [SPARQL11-QUERY, Section 18.2]. This process must be adjusted to consider the extended grammar introduced above. In the following, any step of the conversion process that requires adjustment is discussed.

4.3.1 Variable Scope

As a basis of the translation, the SPARQL specification introduces a notion of in-scope variables. To cover the new syntax elements introduced in § 4.2 Grammar this notion MUST be extended as follows.

4.3.2 Expand Syntax Forms

The translation process starts with expanding abbreviations for IRIs and triple patterns [SPARQL11-QUERY, Section 18.2.2.1]. This step MUST be extended in three ways:

  1. Annotation patterns MUST be replaced by additional SPARQL-star triple patterns that have the annotated triple pattern as an embedded triple pattern in their subject position.

  2. Abbreviations for triple patterns with embedded triple patterns MUST be expanded as if each embedded triple pattern was a variable (or an RDF term).

  3. Abbreviations for IRIs in all embedded triple patterns MUST be expanded.

4.3.3 Translate Property Path Patterns

The translation of property path patterns has to be adjusted because the extended grammar allows for SPARQL-star property path patterns whose subject or object is a SPARQL-star triple pattern.

The translation as specified in the W3C specification distinguishes four cases. The first three of these cases do not require adjustment because they are taken care of either by recursion or by the adjusted translation of basic graph patterns (as defined in § 4.3.4 Translate Basic Graph Patterns below). However, the fourth case MUST be adjusted as follows.

Let X P Y be a string that corresponds to the fourth case in [SPARQL11-QUERY, Section 18.2.2.4]. Given the grammar introduced in § 4.2 Grammar, X and Y may be an RDF term, a variable, or an embedded triple pattern, respectively (and P is a property path expression). The string X P Y is translated to the algebra expression Path(X’,P,Y’) where X’ and Y’ are the result of calling a function named Lift for X and Y, respectively. For some input string Z (such as X or Y) that can be an RDF term, a variable, or an embedded triple pattern, the function Lift is defined recursively as follows:

  1. If Z is an embedded triple pattern <<S,P,O>> then return the SPARQL-star triple pattern (Lift(S), P, Lift(O));
  2. Otherwise, return Z.
Note
The purpose of this translation step is to convert any property path pattern as can be written based on the extended grammar for SPARQL-star (cf. § 4.2 Grammar) into a SPARQL-star property path pattern as considered in the algebra. To this end, the function Lift translates every embedded triple pattern as can be written in the SPARQL-star syntax into a SPARQL-star triple pattern.

4.3.4 Translate Basic Graph Patterns

After translating property path patterns, the translation process collects any adjacent triple patterns [...] to form a basic graph pattern [SPARQL11-QUERY, Section 18.2.2.5]. This step has to be adjusted because triple patterns in the extended syntax may have an embedded triple pattern in their subject position or in their object position (or in both). To ensure that every result of this step is a BGP-star, before adding a triple pattern to its corresponding collection, its subject and object MUST be replaced by the result of calling function Lift for the subject and the object, respectively.

4.4 Function Definitions

SPARQL introduces operators and functions that can be used in an expression of a FILTER clause, a BIND clause, or a SELECT clause (see Section 17.3 and Section 17.4 in [SPARQL11-QUERY]). While these operators and functions are defined to operate on RDF terms and query variables, for SPARQL-star they have to be defined to operate on RDF-star terms and query variables. To this end, when using these operators and functions in the context of SPARQL-star, their definitions as given in Section 17.4 of [SPARQL11-QUERY] are extended by assuming that any mention of RDF term as a data type for operands is understood to be the type of all RDF-star terms.

In addition to carrying over the operators and functions of SPARQL, SPARQL-star introduces five new functions that are defined as follows (where the data types RDF-star term and RDF-star triple capture all RDF-star terms and all RDF-star triples, respectively).

4.4.1 TRIPLE

RDF-star triple   TRIPLE ( RDF-star term term1, RDF-star term term2, RDF-star term term3 )

If the 3-tuple (term1, term2, term3) is an RDF-star triple, the function returns this triple. If the 3-tuple is not an RDF-star triple, then the function raises an error.

4.4.2 SUBJECT

RDF-star term   SUBJECT ( RDF-star triple triple )

If triple is an RDF-star triple, the function returns the subject of this triple. Passing anything other than an RDF-star triple is an error.

4.4.3 PREDICATE

RDF-star term   PREDICATE ( RDF-star triple triple )

If triple is an RDF-star triple, the function returns the predicate of this triple. Passing anything other than an RDF-star triple is an error.

4.4.4 OBJECT

RDF-star term   OBJECT ( RDF-star triple triple )

If triple is an RDF-star triple, the function returns the object of this triple. Passing anything other than an RDF-star triple is an error.

4.4.5 isTRIPLE

xsd:boolean   isTRIPLE ( RDF-star term term )

Returns true if term is an RDF-star triple. Returns false otherwise.

4.4.6 Embedded Triple Expression

RDF-star triple   << RDF-star term term1, RDF-star term term2, RDF-star term term3 >>

An Embedded Triple Expression <<S P O>>, where S, P and O conform to ExprVarOrTerm, evaluates function TRIPLE(S, P, O).

4.4.7 Examples and Discussion

This section is non-normative.

By the evaluation semantics of SPARQL-star as defined in § 4.5 Evaluation Semantics, the five new built-in functions defined above can be used in exactly the same manner as the functions defined in the SPARQL 1.1 spec. For instance, the following SPARQL-star query retrieves every asserted triple that is both contained in the default graph of the queried RDF-star dataset and has an embedded triple as its subject.

SELECT ?t WHERE {
  ?s ?p ?o .
  BIND( TRIPLE(?s,?p,?o) AS ?t )
  FILTER( isTRIPLE(SUBJECT(?t)) )
}

Instead of accessing the subject of the triples in the FILTER after the BIND clause, as was done in the previous query, a semantically equivalent query may apply the FILTER directly on the variable ?s, as follows:

SELECT ?t WHERE {
  ?s ?p ?o .
  BIND( TRIPLE(?s,?p,?o) AS ?t )
  FILTER( isTRIPLE(?s) )
}

While the triples that the previous example queries bind to variable ?t occur in the queried data, the TRIPLE function can be used to construct triples that may not be in the data. For instance, the following query uses the subject of each asserted triple in the default graph of the queried RDF-star dataset to construct another triple, and bind it to the variable ?t. Notice that the result of this query contains as many SPARQL-star solution mappings as there are asserted triples in the queried graph, and there may be duplicates in the result if multiple asserted triples have the same subject.

PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>

SELECT ?t WHERE {
  ?s ?p ?o .
  BIND( TRIPLE(?s,rdf:type,rdfs:Resource) AS ?t )
}

There are cases where the effects of using the new TRIPLE function are not immediately obvious just from its definition, particularly when considering the interplay of this function with the BNODE function when used within GRAPH clauses. Some of these cases are discussed below.

Consider the following SPARQL-star query.

SELECT ( COUNT(?t1) AS ?t1Count )
       ( COUNT(?t2) AS ?t2Count )
       ( COUNT(?t3) AS ?t3Count )
       ( COUNT(DISTINCT ?t1) AS ?t1DistCount )
       ( COUNT(DISTINCT ?t2) AS ?t2DistCount )
       ( COUNT(DISTINCT ?t3) AS ?t3DistCount )
WHERE {
  GRAPH ?g {
    BIND( TRIPLE(BNODE(), :p, :o) AS ?t1 )
    BIND( TRIPLE(BNODE("id"), :p, :o) AS ?t2 )
    BIND( TRIPLE(:s, :p, :o) AS ?t3 )
  }
}

When evaluated over an RDF-star dataset that contains n named graphs, where n>0, the GRAPH clause results in one SPARQL-star solution mapping per named graph. The SELECT clause collapses these n mappings into a single mapping that is defined for the six variables introduced in the SELECT clause. (If n=0, the query result is the empty set.) Each of these six variables is mapped to an integer-typed literal with values as follows. For each of ?t1Count, ?t2Count, and ?t3Count, the value is n, because the variables ?t1, ?t2, and ?t3 are bound in each of the n solution mappings produced for the GRAPH clause. For the variable ?t1DistCount, the value is also n, because the BIND clauses are evaluated n times (once for each named graph) and the subexpression BNODE() always creates a different new blank node; thus, the triples created for variable ?t1 are all different from one another. This is also the case if the BNODE function is used with an argument; i.e., the value of ?t2DistCount is n too. In contrast, the variable ?t3 is mapped to the same triple within each evaluation of the third BIND clause; thus, the value for ?t3DistCount is 1.

Notice that the BNODE function has to be used to create a blank node; simply writing a blank node directly in an expression is not permitted.

Notice as well that the preceding query is special in two ways: its GRAPH clause does not actually consider the content of the named graphs; and the expressions in the BIND clauses do not contain variables. In contrast, the GRAPH clause and the BIND clauses in the following query do.

PREFIX rdf:  <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
PREFIX rdfg: <http://www.w3.org/2004/03/trix/rdfg-1/>

SELECT ( COUNT(?t1) AS ?t1Count )
       ( COUNT(?t2) AS ?t2Count )
WHERE {
  GRAPH ?g {
    ?g rdf:type rdfg:Graph .
    BIND( TRIPLE(?g, rdf:type, rdfs:Resource) AS ?t1 )
    BIND( TRIPLE(?x, rdf:type, rdfs:Resource) AS ?t2 )
  }
}

For every RDF-star dataset with n>0 named graphs, the result of this query consists of a single SPARQL-star solution mapping that is defined for the three variables introduced in the SELECT clause. The value of ?t1Count is the number of named graphs in the queried dataset that contain a triple of the form (u, rdf:type, rdfg:Graph) such that u is the name of the named graph in the dataset. The value of ?t2Count is always 0 (zero), because evaluating the expression of the second BIND clause results in an error, because the variable ?x is not bound in the scope of this evaluation. As a side note, evaluating the expression of the first BIND clause would also result in an error, if the variable ?g was not mentioned inside the GRAPH clause (e.g., if the given triple pattern was not there).

4.5 Evaluation Semantics

The SPARQL specification defines a function eval(D(G), algebra expression) as the evaluation of an algebra expression with respect to a dataset D having active graph G [SPARQL11-QUERY, Section 18.6]. Recall that the dataset D in the context of SPARQL-star is an RDF-star dataset and, thus, the active graph G is an RDF-star graph, and so is any other graph in dataset D. The definition of the eval function is recursive; the base case of this definition for SPARQL-star are given as follows:

For any other algebra expression, the SPARQL specification defines algebra operators [SPARQL11-QUERY]. These definitions can be extended naturally to operate over multisets of SPARQL-star solution mappings (instead of ordinary solution mappings). Given this extension, the recursive steps of the definition of the eval function for SPARQL-star are the same as in the SPARQL specification.

4.6 Query Result Formats

In SPARQL, queries can take four forms: SELECT, CONSTRUCT, DESCRIBE, and ASK - see SPARQL1.1 Query, Section 16 [SPARQL11-QUERY]. The first of these returns a sequence of solution mappings that contain variable bindings. The second and third both return an RDF graph, and the last returns a boolean value.

The result of the ASK query form is not changed by the introduction of RDF-star, and the result of the CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE forms can be represented by Turtle-star. However, since the SELECT form deals with returning individual RDF terms, the specific serialization formats for representing such query results need to be extended so that the new embedded triple RDF term can be represented. In this section, we propose extensions for the two most common formats for this purpose: SPARQL 1.1 Query Results JSON Format, and SPARQL Query Results XML Format (Second Edition).

Issue 43: New mime types for RDF-star serializations (inc. SPARQL results) concrete-syntaxsparql-star

In addition to defining the extended formats for serializing the result of a SPARQL* SELECT query (#12 and #13), we have to decide whether we need/want new mime types for these extended formats? Similarly, do we need/want to introduce another namespace for the extended XML result format?

4.6.1 SPARQL-star Query Results JSON Format

The result of a SPARQL SELECT query is serialized in JSON as defined in SPARQL 1.1 Query Results JSON Format, which specifies a JSON representation of variable bindings to RDF terms (see [sparql11-results-json, Section 3.2]). To accommodate the new RDF term for embedded triples that RDF-star introduces, the table of RDF term JSON representations in sparql11-results-json, Section 3.2.2 is extended with the following entry:

An embedded triple with subject RDF term S, predicate RDF term P and object RDF term O
{
  "type": "triple",
  "value": {
     "subject": S,
     "predicate": P,
     "object": O
  }
}
where S, P and O are encoded using the same format, recursively.

4.6.2 SPARQL-star Query Results XML Format

The result of a SPARQL SELECT query is serialized in XML as defined in SPARQL Query Results XML Format (Second Edition). This format proposes an XML representation of variable bindings to RDF terms.

To accommodate the new RDF term for embedded triples that RDF-star introduces, the list of RDF terms and their XML representations in [rdf-sparql-XMLres, Section 2.3.1] is extended as follows:

An embedded triple with subject term S, predicate term P, and object term O
<binding>
  <triple>
    <subject>S</subject>
    <predicate>P</predicate>
    <object>O</object>
  </triple>
</binding>
where S, P and O are encoded recursively, using the same format, without the enclosing <binding> tag.

5. SPARQL-star Update

This section specifies SPARQL-star Update, an update language for RDF-star. This language extends SPARQL Update [SPARQL11-UPDATE], the update language for RDF, by adding RDF-star-specific features and semantics.

5.1 Informal Description

This section is non-normative.

While SPARQL Update operates over a graph store that consists of RDF graphs, SPARQL-star Update extends the notion of graph store to contain RDF-star graphs instead of RDF graphs. That is, a graph store in the context of SPARQL-star Update contains one (unnamed) slot holding an RDF-star graph, referred to as the default graph, and zero or more named slots holding other RDF-star graphs, referred to as named graphs. Then, all graph management operations in SPARQL Update (CREATE, DROP, COPY, MOVE, ADD) carry over directly to SPARQL-star Update with the only difference being that in SPARQL-star Update these operations manage RDF-star graphs. For instance, the CREATE operation in SPARQL-star Update creates an RDF-star graph rather than a pure RDF graph. Similarly, the graph update operations LOAD and CLEAR in SPARQL-star Update operate with RDF-star graphs in the same way as their SPARQL Update counterparts operate with RDF graphs.

The only operations that SPARQL-star Update actually extends are the graph update operations INSERT DATA, DELETE DATA, and DELETE/INSERT. This section describes these extensions informally. While this description focuses mainly on updates to the default graph, the operations can also be applied to the named graphs.

5.1.1 INSERT DATA

The INSERT DATA operation can be used to add a given set of triples into the graph store. In the context of SPARQL-star Update, these triples may be RDF-star triples. As an example, consider the following INSERT DATA operation.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

INSERT DATA {
  :alice :claims << :bob :age 23 >> .
}

Suppose this INSERT DATA operation is executed over a graph store with an empty default graph. After executing this operation, the default graph contains the given (nested) RDF-star triple. Now, it is possible to query for this triple. For instance, the following SPARQL-star query returns a single solution mapping in which the variables ?p and ?a are mapped to the IRI :alice and the literal 23, respectively.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

SELECT ?p ?a WHERE {
  ?p :claims << :bob :age ?a >> .
}

Notice that inserting a nested triple does not automatically also insert its embedded triple(s) as asserted triple(s) into the graph. Hence, in the previous example, after executing the given INSERT DATA operation, the default graph does not contain the triple :bob :age 23. In other words, a query such as the following would have an empty result.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

SELECT ?a WHERE {
  :bob :age ?a .
}

For an embedded triple to be present in the graph as an asserted triple, it needs to be inserted as such. For instance, the INSERT DATA operation in the example above may be modified as follows in order to insert not only the nested triple but also the triple :bob :age 23.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

INSERT DATA {
  :bob :age 23 .
  :alice :claims << :bob :age 23 >> .
}

5.1.2 DELETE DATA

The DELETE DATA operation can be used to remove a given set of triples from the graph store. In the context of SPARQL-star Update, this may include removing nested RDF-star triples as demonstrated in the following example.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

DELETE DATA {
  :alice :claims << :bob :age 23 >> .
}

After executing this DELETE DATA operation over a graph store with a default graph that contains the given nested triple, the graph will not contain this triple any longer. If the graph did not contain that nested triple in the first place, the graph will remain unchanged by the given DELETE DATA operation.

Notice that deleting triples by using the DELETE DATA operation does not affect any other triples in the corresponding graphs. For instance, for a default graph that contains the triple :bob :age 23 as an asserted triple, the DELETE DATA operation given above does not delete this asserted triple. In contrast, the following operation would delete this asserted triple but it would not delete any nested triple that contains the given triple as an embedded triple.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

DELETE DATA {
  :bob :age 23 .
}

5.1.3 DELETE/INSERT

The DELETE/INSERT operation can be used to remove or add triples based on variable bindings obtained by evaluating a given WHERE clause. As an example, the following DELETE/INSERT operation replaces all nested triples in which :alice is the subject by nested triples in which :carol is the subject.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

DELETE { :alice ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> . }
INSERT { :carol ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> . }
WHERE {  :alice ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> . }

As in SPARQL Update, in SPARQL-star Update it is possible to use variations of the DELETE/INSERT operations in which either the DELETE clause or the INSERT clause are omitted.

When removing triples via the DELETE clause (irrespective of whether the INSERT clause is omitted or not), the effects with respect to nested triples must be the same as described above for the DELETE DATA operation; i.e., only the triples that are explicitly identified to be deleted are deleted. Similarly, inserting triples via the INSERT clause has the same effects as described above for the INSERT DATA operation; i.e., inserting nested triples does not automatically also insert their embedded triples as asserted triples into the graph. Of course, it is possible to request such inserts explicitly as demonstrated in the following example.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

DELETE { :alice ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> . }
INSERT { :carol ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> .  ?s ?p ?o .}
WHERE {  :alice ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> . }

While all SPARQL-star Update examples above focus only on the default graph of a graph store, SPARQL-star Update can also be used to update the named graphs of a graph store, which works in exactly the same way as in SPARQL Update. As a possible example consider the following INSERT operation which retrieves all embedded triples found in nested triples in the default graph and inserts them as asserted triples into the named graph with IRI :graph2.

PREFIX : <http://www.example.org/>

INSERT {
  GRAPH :graph2 { ?s ?p ?o }
}
WHERE {
  { <<?s ?p ?o>> ?pp ?oo }
  UNION
  { ?ss ?pp <<?s ?p ?o>> }
}

5.2 Grammar

SPARQL-star Update is an extension of the SPARQL Update language [SPARQL11-UPDATE]. As mentioned in SPARQL 1.1 Update, Appendix C [SPARQL11-UPDATE], the grammar of the latter is provided as part of the SPARQL 1.1 Query grammar. Similarly, the grammar of SPARQL-star Update is provided as part of the grammar of the SPARQL-star query language, which is defined by the SPARQL 1.1 Query grammar with the extensions specified in § 4.2 Grammar. As a result of these extensions, the production rules QuadData and QuadPattern, which are used in the definition of SPARQL Update [SPARQL11-UPDATE], are extended to capture nested triples and nested triple patterns as demonstrated in the examples above.

5.3 Semantics

The semantics of SPARQL-star Update operations can also be defined by a simple extension of the formalization of SPARQL Update [SPARQL11-UPDATE]. This extension assumes that any mention of "RDF triple" or "triple" in the formalization of SPARQL Update is understood as an RDF-star triple. Similarly, "RDF graph" and "solution mapping" are understood as RDF-star graph and SPARQL-star solution mapping, respectively. Any mention of the "evaluation function eval()" is understood as the eval function for SPARQL-star as defined in § 4.5 Evaluation Semantics.

6. RDF-star Semantics

In this section, we provide a model-theoretic semantics for RDF-star, based on the one defined in RDF 1.1 Semantics [RDF11-MT]. More precisely, we define a mapping from RDF-star's abstract syntax into standard RDF's abstract syntax, and define the semantics of RDF-star graphs in terms of the semantics of the mapped RDF graphs.

In the following, we will use abbreviated IRIs using the prefix unstar: which is an alias for the namespace https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/unstar#.

We also introduce a number of definitions specific to RDF-star, which rely on the following notions, defined in RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax [RDF11-CONCEPTS] and RDF 1.1 Semantics [RDF11-MT]: datatype, lexical form, simple literal, ill-typed, merging, satisfiability, unsatisfiability, entailment, and equivalence.

6.1 Mapping RDF-star abstract syntax to RDF

We define a mapping L that maps any IRI or literal t to a literal with:

Given an RDF-star graph G, the following steps transform it into an RDF graph that we call unstar(G).

  1. For each IRI i in the constituents of G starting with https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/unstar#:
    1. Mint a new IRI j by appending an underscore (_) to i.
    2. Replace with j all occurrences of i in the subject, predicate, or object position of an asserted or embedded triple of G.
  2. While G contains embedded triples:
    1. Pick an RDF-star triple (s, p, o) in the constituents of G such that neither s nor o is an embedded triple.
    2. Mint a fresh blank node b (i.e., such that b is not in the constituents of G).
    3. Replace with b all occurrences of (s, p, o) in the subject or object position of an asserted or embedded triple of G.
    4. Add the following asserted triples to G:
      • (b, unstar:subject,   s)
      • (b, unstar:predicate, p)
      • (b, unstar:object,    o) unless o is an ill-typed literal
      • (b, unstar:subjectLexical,   L(s)) unless s is blank node
      • (b, unstar:predicateLexical, L(p))
      • (b, unstar:objectLexical,    L(o)) unless o is blank node

After these steps, unstar(G) is an RDF graph, as it contains no embedded triples. Note that if G contains no embedded triple and no IRI in the unstar: namespace, then unstar(G) = G.

6.2 Entailment of RDF-star graphs

Following RDF 1.1 Semantics, we define the notions of satisfiability and entailment for RDF-star graphs. Given two RDF-star graphs G and H:

It is easy to see that, in the special case of RDF graphs G and H (i.e. RDF-star graphs containing no embedded triple), G is star-satisfiable if and only if G is simply satisfiable, and G star-entails H if and only if G simply entails H. This is trivially true if G and H do not contain any unstar: IRI (in which case they are left unchanged by unstar). But this is also true if they do contain such IRIs (as the renaming performed by unstar has no significant impact on the semantic relationships between the two graphs). Star-entailment can therefore be considered as a natural extension of simple entailment to RDF-star graphs.

Note

Other notions of satisfiability and entailment, such as RDF entailment or RDFS entailment, can be extended in the same way for RDF-star graphs.

6.3 Merging RDF-star graphs

RDF 1.1 Semantics [RDF11-MT] defines the merging of two or more RDF graphs as "[taking their] union after forcing any shared blank nodes, which occur in more than one graph, to be distinct in each graph." Note that, in the case of RDF-star graphs, any blank node in the constituent terms of that graph is governed by the definition above, not only those in the subject or object position of some asserted triple.

#### graph #1
:alice :says
  << _:x :name "bob" >>,
  << _:x :likes :alice >>.

#### graph #2
:bob :says
  << :alice :hates _:x >>.

#### Merge of graphs #1 and #2 →
:alice :says
  << _:y :name "bob" >>,
  << _:y :likes :alice >>.
:bob :says
  << :alice :hates _:z >>.

6.4 Remarks

This section is non-normative.

6.4.1 Implementing the RDF-star semantics

It is important to notice that the definitions given above for satisfiability and entailment of RDF-star graphs do not mandate that implementations actually transform RDF-star graphs using the unstar mapping. It should be possible to implement the semantics by directly handling RDF-star's abstract syntax.

6.4.2 Combining RDF-star graphs

For implementations that rely on the unstar mapping defined above, care must be taken when the resulting RDF graphs are combined through union or merge. Given two RDF-star graphs G and H, it may be the case that unstar(G ∪ H) ≠ unstar(G) ∪ unstar(H).

In particular, if G and H contain the same embedded triple, this triple will be mapped to a single blank node in unstar(G ∪ H), but in two potentially different blank nodes in unstar(G) ∪ unstar(H). These blank nodes will need to be unified in order to reconstruct unstar(G ∪ H).

Conversely, nothing in the definition of unstar prevents it from generating the same blank node b for an embedded triple of G, and for a different embedded triple of H (provided that b is not present in either G nor H). In that case, not only would unstar(G) ∪ unstar(H) be different from unstar(G ∪ H), but it would lose some information by mixing the descriptions of the two embedded triples.

6.4.3 Other uses of the unstar mapping

Since the unstar mapping defined above transforms any RDF-star graph into a standard ("non-star") RDF graph, it might be tempting to use this mapping for conveying RDF-star graphs to legacy RDF systems. However, this has a number of caveats.

First, the unstar mapping alters the semantics of the graph: in general, a graph G is not equivalent to its "unstarred" version unstar(G), even if G is a standard RDF graph containing no embedded triples. (More precisely, they are equivalent only if G contains no embedded triples and no IRIs from the unstar: namespace.)

Second, when a legacy RDF system communicates an RDF graph to an RDF-star-aware system, there is no means by which the latter can determine with certainty whether the graph is the result of an unstar mapping, and thus needs to be transformed back. (The presence of unstar: IRIs in the graph can be used as a hint, but such IRIs can also be used independently of the mapping.) Additional metadata should therefore be attached to unstarred graphs, so that RDF-star systems know whether or not they need to apply the inverse transformation of unstar.

Finally, legacy RDF systems may alter unstarred graphs in ways that prevent their transformation back to the original RDF-star graph. For example, it has been pointed out above how combining several unstarred graphs may not yield the expected result. Another example is the removal of some arcs, such that an embedded triple is not completely described anymore, and can not be reconstructed.

Note
Multiple design choices have been discussed by the community group for the semantics, that have been summarized in a Github issue.

A. IANA Considerations

This section is non-normative.

In § 3. Concrete Syntaxes, we have proposed extensions to four existing media types, namely text/turtle [TURTLE], application/trig [TRIG], application/n-triples [N-TRIPLES] and application/n-quads [N-QUADS]. In § 4. SPARQL-star Query Language, we have proposed extensions to three more existing media types, namely application/sparql-query [SPARQL11-QUERY], application/sparql-results+json [SPARQL11-RESULTS-JSON], and application/sparql-result+xml [RDF-SPARQL-XMLRES]. While the RDF-DEV Community Group has no authority to officially update these media-types, we hope that a future working group with such authority will consider doing so, and include extensions proposed in this report.

In the meantime, implementers of RDF-star are faced with a dilemma: use the standard media-type identifiers as if their definition had been already updated (optimistic approach); or make it explicit that they are prone to produce or consume embedded triples (pessimistic approach), perhaps by using a different temporary media-type from the unregistered x. tree [RFC6838], profile links [RFC6906], or custom HTTP headers.

The optimistic approach raises the risk of breaking the expectations of other applications that are not RDF-star-aware. For example, if a SPARQL-star endpoint responds to a CONSTRUCT query with the text/turtle media-type, and includes an embedded triple in the response, a legacy client will fail to parse that response. On the other hand, if the same server applies the pessimistic approach, it may simply reject any query requiring text/turtle, just in case the result contain embedded triples. Note that it is not always feasible for the server to decide beforehand whether the result is plain Turtle or Turtle-star, because the result is often produced in a streamed manner, after the headers containing the media-type have been sent to the client.

Another problem with the pessimistic approach is that "temporary" media-types are known to actually become permanent. Old applications keep using them long after their intended expiration date. This a burden on all other implementations, which must handle the "temporary" media-types along the permanent one, as aliases, in order to maintain backward compatibility.

Issue

Although the examples in this document, and the tests in the test suite, adopt the optimistic approach, it should be noted that no clear consensus emerged from the group on which approach is the best.

B. Historical remarks

This section is non-normative.

B.1 SA-mode and PG-mode

A lot of discussions on the RDF-star mailing list and GitHub repository refer to SA-mode and PG-mode. Those abbreviations stand for "Separate Assertion mode" and "Property Graph mode". They originate in the fact that different versions of RDF-star have been published over the years, with different designs. In PG-mode, any embedded triple was also considered asserted. SA-mode, on the other hand, allowed the use of embedded triples without those triples being automatically asserted, requiring that they be asserted separately when that was intended. SA-mode was more flexible, but induced redundancy in the use-cases that PG-mode was designed to address.

The notion of annotations in the Turtle-star syntax was introduced to remove the need for different modes. Rather than interpret the same syntax differently in each mode, which would have caused interoperability problems and required a switch for those modes, it was decided to provide a different syntax for each use case.

B.2 The seminal example

The motivating example in the original RDF-star paper [RDF-STAR-FOUNDATION] was on a provenance use-case, and is repeated below.

# the controversial seminal example
:bob foaf:name "Bob".
<<:bob foaf:age 23>> dct:creator <http://example.com/crawlers#c1> ;
                     dct:source <http://example.net/listing.html> .

This example was further debated on the RDF-star mailing list, as it appears to have set wrong expectations about what embedded triples represent. More precisely, from this example, one may wrongly assume that <<:bob foaf:age 23>> represents the occurrence of the given triple at the address http://example.net/listing.html (see § 2.1 Triples and occurrences). This impression may be reinforced by the use of dct:creator: arguably, a triple (as a unique abstract entity) is not "created" by anyone, while an occurrence thereof can be said to be created or authored.

The problem with this interpretation is that it will break as soon as other creators and sources are added for the triple: one could not tell which source corresponds to which creator. Correctly capturing this information would require additional nodes to explicitly represent triple occurrences, as in Example 5. In summary, although RDF-star can be used for provenance, the seminal example does not work as stated and can lead to the fundamentally incorrect interpretation that RDF-star can represent multiple distinct embedded triples with the same subject, predicate, and object.

C. Issue Summary

This section is non-normative.

D. References

D.1 Normative references

[N-QUADS]
RDF 1.1 N-Quads. Gavin Carothers. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/n-quads/
[N-TRIPLES]
RDF 1.1 N-Triples. Gavin Carothers; Andy Seaborne. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/n-triples/
[RDF-SPARQL-XMLRES]
SPARQL Query Results XML Format (Second Edition). Dave Beckett; Jeen Broekstra. W3C. 21 March 2013. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/
[RDF11-CONCEPTS]
RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax. Richard Cyganiak; David Wood; Markus Lanthaler. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/
[RDF11-MT]
RDF 1.1 Semantics. Patrick Hayes; Peter Patel-Schneider. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-mt/
[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. S. Bradner. IETF. March 1997. Best Current Practice. URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2119
[RFC8174]
Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words. B. Leiba. IETF. May 2017. Best Current Practice. URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8174
[SPARQL11-QUERY]
SPARQL 1.1 Query Language. Steven Harris; Andy Seaborne. W3C. 21 March 2013. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/
[SPARQL11-RESULTS-JSON]
SPARQL 1.1 Query Results JSON Format. Andy Seaborne. W3C. 21 March 2013. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-results-json/
[SPARQL11-UPDATE]
SPARQL 1.1 Update. Paula Gearon; Alexandre Passant; Axel Polleres. W3C. 21 March 2013. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-update/
[TRIG]
RDF 1.1 TriG. Gavin Carothers; Andy Seaborne. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/trig/
[TURTLE]
RDF 1.1 Turtle. Eric Prud'hommeaux; Gavin Carothers. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/turtle/
[XML]
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). Tim Bray; Jean Paoli; Michael Sperberg-McQueen; Eve Maler; François Yergeau et al. W3C. 26 November 2008. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/

D.2 Informative references

[JSON-LD]
JSON-LD 1.0. Manu Sporny; Gregg Kellogg; Markus Lanthaler. W3C. 3 November 2020. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/
[RDF-STAR-FOUNDATION]
Foundations of RDF* and SPARQL* - An Alternative Approach to Statement-Level Metadata in RDF.. Olaf Hartig. In Proceedings of the 11th Alberto Mendelzon International Workshop on Foundations of Data Management (AMW), Montevideo, Uruguay. June 2017. URL: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1912/paper12.pdf
[RDF-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR]
RDF 1.1 XML Syntax. Fabien Gandon; Guus Schreiber. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/
[RFC6838]
Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures. N. Freed; J. Klensin; T. Hansen. IETF. January 2013. Best Current Practice. URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6838
[RFC6906]
The 'profile' Link Relation Type. E. Wilde. IETF. March 2013. Informational. URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6906