JSON-LD

From Semantic Web Standards

A JSON-based Serialization for Linked Data (JSON-LD)

Overview

The JSON-LD syntax is designed to easily integrate into deployed systems that already use JSON, and provides a smooth upgrade path from JSON to JSON-LD. It is primarily intended to be a way to use Linked Data in Web-based programming environments, to build interoperable Web services, and to store Linked Data in JSON-based storage engines. Since JSON-LD is 100% compatible with JSON, the large number of JSON parsers and libraries available today can be reused. In addition to all the features JSON provides, JSON-LD introduces:

  • a universal identifier mechanism for JSON objects via the use of IRIs,
  • a way to disambiguate keys shared among different JSON documents by mapping them to IRIs via a context,
  • a mechanism in which a value in a JSON object may refer to a JSON object on a different site on the Web,
  • the ability to annotate strings with their language,
  • a way to associate datatypes with values such as dates and times,
  • and a facility to express one or more directed graphs, such as a social network, in a single document.

JSON-LD is designed to be usable directly as JSON, with no knowledge of RDF. It is also designed to be usable as RDF, if desired, for use with other Linked Data technologies like SPARQL. Developers who require any of the facilities listed above or need to serialize an RDF Graph or RDF Dataset in a JSON-based syntax will find JSON-LD of interest. People intending to use JSON-LD with RDF tools will find it can be used as another RDF syntax, like Turtle.

Recommended Reading

The official JSON-LD document has a tutorial-like introdoction that helps understanding the main concepts. The community also maintains a separate JSON-LD Information site with examples, JSON-LD viewer and debugger, and developer information.


Points for consideration

Tools that are listed as relevant to JSON-LD

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