On foundational aspects of RDF and SPARQL

Dominique Duval (1) , Rachid Echahed (2) , Frederic Prost (3)

1 CASC - Calcul Algébrique et Symbolique, Sécurité, Systèmes Complexes, Codes et Cryptologie
2 CAPP - Calculs algorithmes programmes et preuves
3 LIG - Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble

We consider the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) about the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the associated query language SPARQL. We propose a new formal framework based on category theory which provides clear and concise formal definitions of the main basic features of RDF and SPARQL. We propose to define the notions of RDF graphs as well as SPARQL basic graph patterns as objects of some nested categories. This allows one to clarify, in particular, the role of blank nodes. Furthermore, we consider basic SPARQL CONSTRUCT and SELECT queries and formalize their operational semantics following a novel algebraic graph transformation approach called POIM.

Domaines: Théorie et langage formel [cs.FL]; Langage de programmation [cs.PL]

Dominique Duval, Rachid Echahed, Frederic Prost. On foundational aspects of RDF and SPARQL. 2019. ⟨hal-02316115v1⟩