SPARQLWrapper is a simple Python wrapper around a SPARQL service to remotely execute your queries. It helps in creating the query invokation and, possibly, convert the result into a more manageable format.
You can install SPARQLWrapper from PyPi:
$ pip install sparqlwrapper
You can install SPARQLWrapper from GitHub:
$ pip install git+https://github.com/rdflib/sparqlwrapper#egg=sparqlwrapper
You can install SPARQLWrapper from Debian:
$ sudo apt-get install python-sparqlwrapper
Note
Be aware that there could be a gap between the latest version of SPARQLWrapper and the version available as Debian package.
Also, the source code of the package can be downloaded
in .zip
and .tar.gz
formats from GitHub SPARQLWrapper releases.
Documentation is included in the distribution.
The simplest usage of this module looks as follows (using the default, ie, XML return format, and special URI for the SPARQL Service):
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper queryString = "SELECT * WHERE { ?s ?p ?o. }" sparql = SPARQLWrapper("http://example.org/sparql") sparql.setQuery(queryString) try : ret = sparql.query() # ret is a stream with the results in XML, see <http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/> except : deal_with_the_exception()
If SPARQLWrapper("http://example.org/sparql",returnFormat=SPARQLWrapper.JSON)
was used, the result would be in
JSON format instead of XML.
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper, JSON
sparql = SPARQLWrapper("http://dbpedia.org/sparql")
sparql.setQuery("""
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
SELECT ?label
WHERE { <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Asturias> rdfs:label ?label }
""")
sparql.setReturnFormat(JSON)
results = sparql.query().convert()
for result in results["results"]["bindings"]:
print(result["label"]["value"])
print('---------------------------')
for result in results["results"]["bindings"]:
print('%s: %s' % (result["label"]["xml:lang"], result["label"]["value"]))
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper, XML
sparql = SPARQLWrapper("http://dbpedia.org/sparql")
sparql.setQuery("""
ASK WHERE {
<http://dbpedia.org/resource/Asturias> rdfs:label "Asturias"@es
}
""")
sparql.setReturnFormat(XML)
results = sparql.query().convert()
print(results.toxml())
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper, RDFXML
from rdflib import Graph
sparql = SPARQLWrapper("http://dbpedia.org/sparql")
sparql.setQuery("""
PREFIX dbo: <http://dbpedia.org/ontology/>
PREFIX schema: <http://schema.org/>
CONSTRUCT {
?lang a schema:Language ;
schema:alternateName ?iso6391Code .
}
WHERE {
?lang a dbo:Language ;
dbo:iso6391Code ?iso6391Code .
FILTER (STRLEN(?iso6391Code)=2) # to filter out non-valid values
}
""")
sparql.setReturnFormat(RDFXML)
results = sparql.query().convert()
print(results.serialize(format='xml'))
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper, N3
from rdflib import Graph
sparql = SPARQLWrapper("http://dbpedia.org/sparql")
sparql.setQuery("""
DESCRIBE <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Asturias>
""")
sparql.setReturnFormat(N3)
results = sparql.query().convert()
g = Graph()
g.parse(data=results, format="n3")
print(g.serialize(format='n3'))
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper, POST, DIGEST
sparql = SPARQLWrapper("https://example.org/sparql-auth")
sparql.setHTTPAuth(DIGEST)
sparql.setCredentials("login", "password")
sparql.setMethod(POST)
sparql.setQuery("""
WITH <http://example.graph>
DELETE
{ <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Asturias> rdfs:label "Asturies"@ast }
""")
results = sparql.query()
print results.response.read()
There is also a SPARQLWrapper2
class that works with JSON SELECT
results only and wraps the results to make processing of average queries
a bit simpler.
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper2
sparql = SPARQLWrapper2("http://dbpedia.org/sparql")
sparql.setQuery("""
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
SELECT ?label
WHERE { <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Asturias> rdfs:label ?label }
""")
for result in sparql.query().bindings:
print('%s: %s' % (result["label"].lang, result["label"].value))
The expected return formats differs from the query type (SELECT
, ASK
, CONSTRUCT
, DESCRIBE
...).
Note
From the SPARQL specification, The response body of a successful query operation with a 2XX response is either:
SELECT
andASK
: a SPARQL Results Document in XML, JSON, or CSV/TSV format.DESCRIBE
andCONSTRUCT
: an RDF graph serialized, for example, in the RDF/XML syntax, or an equivalent RDF graph serialization.
The package, though it does not contain a full SPARQL parser, makes an attempt to determine the query type when the query is set. This should work in most of the cases (but there is a possibility to set this manually, in case something goes wrong).
To make processing somewhat easier, the package can do some conversions automatically from the return result. These are:
- for XML, the xml.dom.minidom is used to convert the result stream into a
Python representation of a DOM tree
. - for JSON, the json package to generate a
Python dictionary
. Until version 1.3.1, the simplejson package was used. - for CSV or TSV, a simple
string
. - For RDF/XML and JSON-LD, the RDFLib package is used to convert the result into a
Graph
instance. - For RDF Turtle/N3, a simple
string
.
There are two ways to generate this conversion:
- use
ret.convert()
in the return result fromsparql.query()
in the code above - use
sparql.queryAndConvert()
to get the converted result right away if the intermediate stream is not used
For example, in the code below:
try : sparql.setReturnFormat(SPARQLWrapper.JSON) ret = sparql.query() dict = ret.convert() except: deal_with_the_exception()
the value of dict
is a Python dictionary of the query result, based on the SPARQL Query Results JSON Format.
A further help is to offer an extra, partial interpretation of the results, again to cover most of the practical use cases. Based on the SPARQL Query Results JSON Format, the :class:`SPARQLWrapper.SmartWrapper.Bindings` class can perform some simple steps in decoding the JSON return results. If :class:`SPARQLWrapper.SmartWrapper.SPARQLWrapper2` is used instead of :class:`SPARQLWrapper.Wrapper.SPARQLWrapper`, this result format is generated. Note that this relies on a JSON format only, ie, it has to be checked whether the SPARQL service can return JSON or not.
Here is a simple code that makes use of this feature:
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper2 queryString = "SELECT ?subj ?prop WHERE { ?subj ?prop ?o. }" sparql = SPARQLWrapper2("http://example.org/sparql") sparql.setQuery(queryString) try : ret = sparql.query() print ret.variables # this is an array consisting of "subj" and "prop" for binding in ret.bindings : # each binding is a dictionary. Let us just print the results print "%s: %s (of type %s)" % ("s",binding[u"subj"].value,binding[u"subj"].type) print "%s: %s (of type %s)" % ("p",binding[u"prop"].value,binding[u"prop"].type) except: deal_with_the_exception()
To make this type of code even easier to realize, the []
and in
operators are also implemented
on the result of :class:`SPARQLWrapper.SmartWrapper.Bindings`. This can be used to check and find a particular binding (ie, particular row
in the return value). This features becomes particularly useful when the OPTIONAL
feature of SPARQL is used. For example:
from SPARQLWrapper import SPARQLWrapper2 queryString = "SELECT ?subj ?o ?opt WHERE { ?subj <http://a.b.c> ?o. OPTIONAL { ?subj <http://d.e.f> ?opt }}" sparql = SPARQLWrapper2("http://example.org/sparql") sparql.setQuery(queryString) try : ret = sparql.query() print ret.variables # this is an array consisting of "subj", "o", "opt" if (u"subj",u"prop",u"opt") in ret : # there is at least one binding covering the optional "opt", too bindings = ret[u"subj",u"o",u"opt"] # bindings is an array of dictionaries with the full bindings for b in bindings : subj = b[u"subj"].value o = b[u"o"].value opt = b[u"opt"].value # do something nice with subj, o, and opt # another way of accessing to values for a single variable: # take all the bindings of the "subj" subjbind = ret.getValues(u"subj") # an array of Value instances ... except: deal_with_the_exception()
By default, all SPARQL services are invoked using HTTP GET verb. However, POST might be useful if the size of the query extends a reasonable size; this can be set in the query instance.
Note that some combination may not work yet with all SPARQL processors (e.g., there are implementations where POST + JSON return does not work). Hopefully, this problem will eventually disappear.
From SPARQL 1.1 Specification:
The response body of a successful query operation with a 2XX response is either:
- SELECT and ASK: a SPARQL Results Document in XML, JSON, or CSV/TSV format.
- DESCRIBE and CONSTRUCT: an RDF graph serialized, for example, in the RDF/XML syntax, or an equivalent RDF graph serialization.
The fact is that the parameter key for the choice of the output format is not defined. Virtuoso uses format, joseki/fuseki uses output, rasqual seems to use results, etc... Also, in some cases HTTP Content Negotiation can/must be used.
Website: | The SWI-Prolog Semantic Web Server |
---|---|
Documentation: | Search 'sparql' in http://cliopatria.swi-prolog.org/help/http. |
Uses: | Parameters and Content Negotiation. |
Parameter key: | format . |
Parameter value: | MUST be one of these values: rdf+xml , json , csv , application/sparql-results+xml or application/sparql-results+json . |
Website: | OpenLink Virtuoso |
---|---|
Parameter key: | format or output . |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | supported (in CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE). |
- Parameter value, like directly: "text/html" (HTML), "text/x-html+tr" (HTML (Faceted Browsing Links)), "application/vnd.ms-excel", "application/sparql-results+xml" (XML), "application/sparql-results+json" (JSON), "application/javascript" (Javascript), "text/turtle" (Turtle), "application/rdf+xml" (RDF/XML), "text/plain" (N-Triples), "text/csv" (CSV), "text/tab-separated-values" (TSV)
- Parameter value, like indirectly: "HTML" (alias text/html), "JSON" (alias application/sparql-results+json), "XML" (alias application/sparql-results+xml), "TURTLE" (alias text/rdf+n3), JavaScript (alias application/javascript) See http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/doc/dav/wiki/Main/VOSSparqlProtocol#AdditionalHTTPResponseFormats--SELECT
- For a
SELECT
query type, the default return mimetype (ifAccept: */*
is sent) isapplication/sparql-results+xml
- For a
ASK
query type, the default return mimetype (ifAccept: */*
is sent) istext/html
- For a
CONSTRUCT
query type, the default return mimetype (ifAccept: */*
is sent) istext/turtle
- For a
DESCRIBE
query type, the default return mimetype (ifAccept: */*
is sent) istext/turtle
Website: | Fuseki (formerly there was Joseki) |
---|---|
Uses: | Parameters and Content Negotiation. |
Parameter key: | format or output (Fuseki 1, Fuseki 2). |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | supported (in CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE). |
- Fuseki 1 - Short names for "output=" : "json", "xml", "sparql", "text", "csv", "tsv", "thrift"
- Fuseki 2 - Short names for "output=" : "json", "xml", "sparql", "text", "csv", "tsv", "thrift"
- If a non-expected short name is used, the server returns an "Error 400: Can't determine output serialization"
- Valid alias for SELECT and ASK: "json", "xml", csv", "tsv"
- Valid alias for DESCRIBE and CONSTRUCT: "json" (alias for json-ld ONLY in Fuseki 2), "xml"
- Valid mimetype for DESCRIBE and CONSTRUCT: "application/ld+json"
- Default return mimetypes: For a SELECT and ASK query types, the default return mimetype (if Accept: / is sent) is application/sparql-results+json
- Default return mimetypes: For a DESCRIBE and CONTRUCT query types, the default return mimetype (if Accept: / is sent) is text/turtle
- In case of a bad formed query, Fuseki 1 returns 200 instead of 400.
Website: | Eclipse RDF4J (formerly known as OpenRDF Sesame) |
---|---|
Documentation: | https://rdf4j.eclipse.org/documentation/rest-api/#the-query-operation, https://rdf4j.eclipse.org/documentation/rest-api/#content-types |
Uses: | Only content negotiation (no URL parameters). |
Parameter: | If an unexpected parameter is used, the server ignores it. |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | supported (in CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE). |
- SELECT
application/sparql-results+xml
(DEFAULT ifAccept: */*
is sent))application/sparql-results+json
(alsoapplication/json
)text/csv
text/tab-separated-values
- Other values:
application/x-binary-rdf-results-table
- ASK
application/sparql-results+xml
(DEFAULT ifAccept: */*
is sent))application/sparql-results+json
- Other values:
text/boolean
- Not supported:
text/csv
- Not supported:
text/tab-separated-values
- CONSTRUCT
application/rdf+xml
application/n-triples
(DEFAULT ifAccept: */*
is sent)text/turtle
text/n3
application/ld+json
- Other acceptable values:
application/n-quads
,application/rdf+json
,application/trig
,application/trix
,application/x-binary-rdf
text/plain
(returnsapplication/n-triples
)text/rdf+n3
(returnstext/n3
)text/x-nquads
(returnsapplication/n-quads
)
- DESCRIBE
application/rdf+xml
application/n-triples
(DEFAULT ifAccept: */*
is sent)text/turtle
text/n3
application/ld+json
- Other acceptable values:
application/n-quads
,application/rdf+json
,application/trig
,application/trix
,application/x-binary-rdf
text/plain
(returnsapplication/n-triples
)text/rdf+n3
(returnstext/n3
)text/x-nquads
(returnsapplication/n-quads
)
Website: | RASQAL |
---|---|
Documentation: | http://librdf.org/rasqal/roqet.html |
Parameter key: | results . |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | NOT supported. |
Uses roqet as RDF query utility (see http://librdf.org/rasqal/roqet.html) For variable bindings, the values of FORMAT vary upon what Rasqal supports but include simple for a simple text format (default), xml for the SPARQL Query Results XML format, csv for SPARQL CSV, tsv for SPARQL TSV, rdfxml and turtle for RDF syntax formats, and json for a JSON version of the results.
For RDF graph results, the values of FORMAT are ntriples (N-Triples, default), rdfxml-abbrev (RDF/XML Abbreviated), rdfxml (RDF/XML), turtle (Turtle), json (RDF/JSON resource centric), json-triples (RDF/JSON triples) or rss-1.0 (RSS 1.0, also an RDF/XML syntax).
Website: | Marklogic |
---|---|
Uses: | Only content negotiation (no URL parameters). |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | NOT supported. |
You can use following methods to query triples:
- SPARQL mode in Query Console. For details, see Querying Triples with SPARQL
- XQuery using the semantics functions, and Search API, or a combination of XQuery and SPARQL. For details, see Querying Triples with XQuery or JavaScript.
- HTTP via a SPARQL endpoint. For details, see Using Semantics with the REST Client API.
Formats are specified as part of the HTTP Accept headers of the REST request. When you query the SPARQL endpoint with REST Client APIs, you can specify the result output format (See https://docs.marklogic.com/guide/semantics/REST#id_54258. The response type format depends on the type of query and the MIME type in the HTTP Accept header.
This table describes the MIME types and Accept Header/Output formats (MIME type) for different types of SPARQL queries. (See https://docs.marklogic.com/guide/semantics/REST#id_54258 and https://docs.marklogic.com/guide/semantics/loading#id_70682)
- SELECT
- application/sparql-results+xml
- application/sparql-results+json
- text/html
- text/csv
- ASK queries return a boolean (true or false).
- CONSTRUCT or DESCRIBE
- application/n-triples
- application/rdf+json
- application/rdf+xml
- text/turtle
- text/n3
- application/n-quads
- application/trig
Website: | AllegroGraph |
---|---|
Documentation: | https://franz.com/agraph/support/documentation/current/http-protocol.html |
Uses: | Only content negotiation (no URL parameters). |
Parameter: | The server always looks at the Accept header of a request, and tries to generate a response in the format that the client asks for. If this fails, a 406 response is returned. When no Accept, or an Accept of / is specified, the server prefers text/plain, in order to make it easy to explore the interface from a web browser. |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | NOT supported. |
- SELECT
- application/sparql-results+xml (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- application/sparql-results+json (and application/json)
- text/csv
- text/tab-separated-values
- OTHERS: application/sparql-results+ttl, text/integer, application/x-lisp-structured-expression, text/table, application/processed-csv, text/simple-csv, application/x-direct-upis
- ASK
- application/sparql-results+xml (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- application/sparql-results+json (and application/json)
- Not supported: text/csv
- Not supported: text/tab-separated-values
- CONSTRUCT
- application/rdf+xml (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/rdf+n3
- OTHERS: text/integer, application/json, text/plain, text/x-nquads, application/trix, text/table, application/x-direct-upis
- DESCRIBE
- application/rdf+xml (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/rdf+n3
Website: | 4store |
---|---|
Documentation: | https://4store.danielknoell.de/trac/wiki/SparqlServer/ |
Uses: | Parameters and Content Negotiation. |
Parameter key: | output . |
Parameter value: | alias. If an unexpected alias is used, the server is not working properly. |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | NOT supported. |
- SELECT
- application/sparql-results+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent))
- application/sparql-results+json or application/json (alias json)
- text/csv (alias csv)
- text/tab-separated-values (alias tsv). Returns "text/plain" in GET.
- Other values: text/plain, application/n-triples
- ASK
- application/sparql-results+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent))
- application/sparql-results+json or application/json (alias json)
- text/csv (alias csv)
- text/tab-separated-values (alias tsv). Returns "text/plain" in GET.
- Other values: text/plain, application/n-triples
- CONSTRUCT
- application/rdf+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/turtle (alias "text")
- DESCRIBE
- application/rdf+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/turtle (alias "text")
Valid alias for SELECT and ASK: | "json", "xml", csv", "tsv" (also "text" and "ascii") |
---|---|
Valid alias for DESCRIBE and CONSTRUCT: | "xml", "text" (for turtle) |
Website: | Blazegraph (Formerly known as Bigdata) & NanoSparqlServer |
---|---|
Documentation: | https://wiki.blazegraph.com/wiki/index.php/REST_API#SPARQL_End_Point |
Uses: | Parameters and Content Negotiation. |
Parameter key: | format (available since version 1.4.0). Setting this parameter will override any Accept Header that is present |
Parameter value: | alias. If an unexpected alias is used, the server is not working properly. |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | NOT supported. |
- SELECT
- application/sparql-results+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent))
- application/sparql-results+json or application/json (alias json)
- text/csv
- text/tab-separated-values
- Other values: application/x-binary-rdf-results-table
- ASK
- application/sparql-results+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent))
- application/sparql-results+json or application/json (alias json)
- CONSTRUCT
- application/rdf+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/turtle (returns text/n3)
- text/n3
- DESCRIBE
- application/rdf+xml (alias xml) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/turtle (returns text/n3)
- text/n3
Valid alias for SELECT and ASK: | "xml", "json" |
---|---|
Valid alias for DESCRIBE and CONSTRUCT: | "xml", "json" (but it returns unexpected "application/sparql-results+json") |
Website: | GraphDB, formerly known as OWLIM (OWLIM-Lite, OWLIM-SE) |
---|---|
Documentation: | http://graphdb.ontotext.com/documentation/free/ |
Uses: | Only content negotiation (no URL parameters). |
Note: | If the Accept value is not within the expected ones, the server returns a 406 "No acceptable file format found." |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | supported (in CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE). |
- SELECT
- application/sparql-results+xml, application/xml (.srx file)
- application/sparql-results+json, application/json (.srj file)
- text/csv (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/tab-separated-values
- ASK
- application/sparql-results+xml, application/xml (.srx file)
- application/sparql-results+json (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent), application/json (.srj file)
- NOT supported: text/csv, text/tab-separated-values
- CONSTRUCT
- application/rdf+xml, application/xml (.rdf file)
- text/turtle (.ttl file)
- application/n-triples (.nt file) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/n3, text/rdf+n3 (.n3 file)
- application/ld+json (.jsonld file)
- DESCRIBE
- application/rdf+xml, application/xml (.rdf file)
- text/turtle (.ttl file)
- application/n-triples (.nt file) (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/n3, text/rdf+n3 (.n3 file)
- application/ld+json (.jsonld file)
Website: | Stardog |
---|---|
Documentation: | https://www.stardog.com/docs/#_http_headers_content_type_accept (looks outdated) |
Uses: | Only content negotiation (no URL parameters). |
Parameter key: | If an unexpected parameter is used, the server ignores it. |
JSON-LD (application/ld+json): | supported (in CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE). |
- SELECT
- application/sparql-results+xml (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- application/sparql-results+json
- text/csv
- text/tab-separated-values
- Other values: application/x-binary-rdf-results-table
- ASK
- application/sparql-results+xml (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- application/sparql-results+json
- Other values: text/boolean
- Not supported: text/csv
- Not supported: text/tab-separated-values
- CONSTRUCT
- application/rdf+xml
- text/turtle (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/n3
- application/ld+json
- Other acceptable values: application/n-triples, application/x-turtle, application/trig, application/trix, application/n-quads
- DESCRIBE
- application/rdf+xml
- text/turtle (DEFAULT if Accept: / is sent)
- text/n3
- application/ld+json
- Other acceptable values: application/n-triples, application/x-turtle, application/trig, application/trix, application/n-quads
The RDFLib package is used for RDF parsing.
This package is imported in a lazy fashion, ie, only when needed. Ie, if the user never intends to use the RDF format, the RDFLib package is not imported and the user does not have to install it.
The source distribution contains:
SPARQLWrapper
: the Python package. You should copy the directory somewhere into your PYTHONPATH. Alternatively, you can also run the distutils scripts:python setup.py install
test
: some unit and integrations tests. In order to run the tests some packages have to be installed before. So please install the packages listed in requirements.development.txt:pip install -r requirements.development.txt
scripts
: some scripts to run the package against some SPARQL endpoints.docs
: the documentation.
Community support is available through the developer's discussion group rdflib-dev. The archives. from the old mailing list are still available.
Please, report any issue to github.
The SPARQLWrapper documentation is available online.
Other interesting documents are the latest SPARQL 1.1 Specification (W3C Recommendation 21 March 2013) and the initial SPARQL Specification (W3C Recommendation 15 January 2008).
The SPARQLWrapper package is licensed under W3C license.
The package was greatly inspired by Lee Feigenbaum's similar package for Javascript.
Developers involved:
- Ivan Herman <http://www.ivan-herman.net>
- Sergio Fernández <http://www.wikier.org>
- Carlos Tejo Alonso <http://www.dayures.net>
- Alexey Zakhlestin <https://indeyets.ru/>
Organizations involved: