W3C’s RDB2RDF Documents have been published as Proposed Recommendations

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Ivan Herman

The W3C RDB2RDF Working Group has published two Proposed Recommendations today:

  • R2RML: RDB to RDF Mapping Language. This document describes R2RML, a language for expressing customized mappings from relational databases to RDF datasets. Such mappings provide the ability to view existing relational data in the RDF data model, expressed in a structure and target vocabulary of the mapping author’s choice. R2RML mappings are themselves RDF graphs and written down in Turtle syntax. R2RML enables different types of mapping implementations. Processors could, for example, offer a virtual SPARQL endpoint over the mapped relational data, or generate RDF dumps, or offer a Linked Data interface.
  • A Direct Mapping of Relational Data to RDF. The need to share data with collaborators motivates custodians and users of relational databases (RDB) to expose relational data on the Web of Data. This document defines a direct mapping from relational data to RDF. This definition provides extension points for refinements within and outside of this document.

The group also published two Working Group Notes today:

  • R2RML and Direct Mapping Test Cases. This document defines the R2RML and Direct Mapping Test Cases deliverable for the RDB2RDF Working Group.
  • RDB2RDF Implementation Report. This document reports on implementations of the Direct Mapping specification and the R2RML specifications. The main purpose of this document is to show that each feature of the Direct Mapping and R2RML has been implemented by demonstrating interoperable implementations of each feature. To evaluate the coverage of an implementation’s features, the RDB2RDF Test Cases are used as a point of reference.

About Ivan Herman

Ivan Herman is the Semantic Web Activity Lead at W3C. He graduated as a mathematician at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Hungary, in 1979. After a brief scholarship at the Université Paris VI he joined the Hungarian research institute in computer science (SZTAKI) where he worked for 6 years. He left Hungary in 1986 and, after a few years in industry, he joined the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Sciences (CWI) in Amsterdam where he has held a tenure position since 1988. He received a PhD degree in Computer Science in 1990 at the Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Ivan joined the W3C team as Head of Offices in January 2001 while maintaining his position at CWI. He served as Head of Offices until June 2006, when he was asked to take the Semantic Web Activity Lead position.

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