W3C

SPARQL Protocol for RDF

W3C Working Draft 27 May 2005

This version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-protocol-20050527/
Latest version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/
Previous version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-protocol-20050114/
Editor:
Kendall Grant Clark, <kendall@monkeyfist.com>, University of Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Laboratory

Copyright ©2005 W3C ® ( MIT , ERCIM , Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark and document use rules apply.

Abstract

The RDF Query Language SPARQL expresses queries over RDF graphs. This document employes WSDL 2.0 to define a protocol for conveying those queries, as well as other operations, to an RDF query processing services and conveying the results of such queries and operations to the entity that requested them. This document also describes an RDF vocabulary for describing the capabilities and characteristics of RDF query processors. This protocol is being developed by the W3C RDF Data Access Working Group (DAWG), part of the Semantic Web Activity as described in the activity statement .

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This is the second Public Working Draft of the SPARQL protocol produced by the RDF Data Access Working Group, (part of the Semantic Web Activity) for review by W3C Members and other interested parties. It reflects the best effort of the editors to reflect implementation experience and incorporate input from various members of the WG, but is not yet endorsed by the WG as a whole. This document defines an abstract protocol and a concrete binding to HTTP. The Working Group would appreciate community feedback on that protocol and binding. Please send comments to the public public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org, a mailing list with a public archive.

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. The Working Group maintains a public list of patent disclosures relevant to this document; that page also includes instructions for disclosing [and excluding] a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) with respect to this specification should disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. SPARQL Protocol
    1. SparqlQuery Interface
    2. SparqlQuery Bindings
  3. Privacy and Other Policy Considerations
  4. References
    1. Normative
    2. Informative
  5. Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

This document describes SPARQL Protocol, a means of conveying RDF queries from query clients to query processors. The SPARQL Protocol has been designed for compatability with the SPARQL Query Language for RDF [SPARQL]. SPARQL Protocol is described in two ways: first, as an interface independent of any concrete realization, implementation, or binding to another protocol; second, as an HTTP binding of this interface.

When this document uses the words must, must not, should, should not, may and recommended, and the words appear as emphasized text, they must be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

2. SPARQL Protocol

The SPARQL protocol contains one interface, SparqlQuery, with one operation, query. The protocol is described abstractly, using WSDL 2.0 [WSDL2]; is described in terms of a web service that implements its interface, types, faults, and operations; and is described concretely by HTTP bindings.

A. SparqlQuery Interface

1. query operation

SparqlQuery is the only interface of SPARQL Protocol. It contains one operation, query, which is used to convey a SPARQL query -- including a SPARQL query string and an RDF dataset -- and a query result between clients (requesters) and services (responders).

The query operation is described as an In-Out message exchange pattern, which is taken from [WSDL-Adjuncts]. The constraints of an In-Out message exchange pattern are as follows:

This pattern consists of exactly two messages, in order, as follows:

  1. A message:

    • indicated by a Message Label component whose {message label} is 'In' and {direction} is 'in'

    • received from some node N

  2. A message:

    • indicated by a Message Label component whose {message label} is 'Out' and {direction} is 'out'

    • sent to node N

This pattern uses the rule 2.1.1 Fault Replaces Message.

This interface and its operation are described in the following WSDL 2.0 fragment (from sparql-protocol-query.wsdl):

<interface name="SparqlQuery" styleDefault="http://www.w3.org/2005/05/wsdl/style/uri">
   <operation name="query" pattern="http://www.w3.org/2004/08/wsdl/in-out" safe="true">
     <documentation>The operation is used to convey queries and their results.</documentation>
     <input messageLabel="In" element="st:query"></input>
     <output messageLabel="Out" element="st:query-result"></output>
   </operation>
</interface>

Figure 1.0 WSDL 2.0 fragment

a. query In Message

Abstractly, the contents of the In Message of SparqlQuery's query operation is an XML Schema complex type, called st:query in Figure 1.0, composed of two further parts: one SPARQL query string; and zero (can there be zero datasets?) or one RDF dataset. The SPARQL query string, represented in the message schema by sparql-query, is defined by [SPARQL] as "a sequence of characters in the language defined by the [SPARQL] grammar, starting with the Query production". Should this definition be inlined here or just hyperlinked to the QL spec?.

The RDF dataset is composed of one default or background RDF graph, identified by one default-graph-uri type; and by zero or more named RDF graphs, identified by zero or more named-graph-uri types. These correspond to the FROM and FROM NAMED keywords in [SPARQL], respectively.

The RDF dataset may be specified either in a legal [SPARQL] query using FROM and FROM NAMED keywords; or it may be specified in the protocol described in this document; or it may be specified in both the query proper and in the protocol. In the case where both the query and the protocol specify an RDF dataset, but not the identical RDF dataset, the dataset specified in the protocol must be the RDF dataset consumed by SparqlQuery's query operation.

These types are defined in the following XML Schema fragment, from sparql-protocol-types.xsd: 

<xs:element name="query">
    <xs:complexType>
        <xs:all>
            <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="sparql-query" type="xs:string"></xs:element>
            <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" ref="rdf-dataset"></xs:element>
        </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
<xs:element name="rdf-dataset">
    <xs:complexType>
        <xs:sequence>
            <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="default-graph-uri" type="xs:anyURI"></xs:element>
            <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="named-graph-uri" type="xs:anyURI"></xs:element>
        </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

Figure 1.1 XML Schema fragment

b. query Out Message

Abstractly, the contents of the Out Message of SparqlQuery's query operation is an XML Schema complex type, called query-result in Figure 1.2, composed of either one or the other of two further elements:

  1. an instance of the SPARQL Variable Binding Results XML Format [VBR] (for SPARQL Query for RDF query forms SELECT and ASK); or,
  2. an instance of the RDF/XML syntax [RDF-Syntax] or an equivalent serialization (for SPARQL Query for RDF query forms DESCRIBE and CONSTRUCT).

The query-result type is defined in this W3C XML Schema fragment, from sparql-protocol-types.xsd: 

<xs:element name="query-result">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:choice>
      <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" ref="vbr:sparql"/>
      <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" ref="rdf:RDF"/>
    </xs:choice>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

Figure 1.2 XML Schema fragment

c. query Fault Messages

[WSDL2-Adjuncts] defines several fault propagation rules which specify how operation faults and messages interact. The query operation described here relies on the Fault Replaces Message rule:

Any message after the first in the pattern may be replaced with a fault message, which must have identical direction. The fault message must be delivered to the same target node as the message it replaces. If there is no path to this node, the fault must be discarded.

Thus, the query operation contained in the SparqlQuery interface may return, in place of the Out Message, the MalformedQuery message, which is defined in this WSDL fragment from sparql-protocol-query.wsdl:

<fault name="MalformedQuery" element="sl:faultDetails"></fault>

Figure 1.3 WSDL 2.0 fragment

B. SparqlQuery Bindings

The SparqlQuery interface operation query described thus far is an abstract operation; it requires protocol bindings to become a concretely invocable operation.

1. HTTP Bindings

[WSDL2-Adjuncts] defines a means of binding abstract interface operations to HTTP. finish description of the HTTP bindings; give more example traces; sort out the way in which the service section of the normative WSDL will interact with the service section of actual deployments...

2. HTTP Examples

The following HTTP traces exemplify invocation of the query operation under several different scenarios. examples normative or descriptive?

a. SELECT with simple RDF dataset

This SPARQL query

PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> 
PREFIX dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> 
SELECT ?book ?who 
WHERE { ?book dc:creator ?who }

is conveyed to the SPARQL query service, http://my.example/sparql/, as illustrated in this HTTP trace, which is formatted in order to be readable:

GET http://my.example/sparql/?query=PREFIX+foaf%3A+%3+Chttp%3A%2F%2Fxmlns.com%2Ffoaf%2F0.1%2F%3E+
PREFIX+dc%3A++++++%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fpurl.org%2+Fdc%2Felements%2F1.1%2F%3E+
SELECT+%3Fbook+%3Fwho+WHERE+%7B+%3Fbook+dc%3Acreator+%3Fwho++%7D
&default-graph-uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmy.example%2Fbooks HTTP 1.0
Host: my.example
User-agent: my-sparql-client/0.1
Accept: application/xml

That query against that RDF dataset, executed by that SPARQL query service, returns the following query result:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 20:55:12 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.29 (Unix) PHP/4.3.4 DAV/1.0.3
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<sparql xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/rf1/result2">
 <head>
   <variable name="book"/>
   <variable name="who"/>
 </head>
 <results>
   <result>
     <binding name="book"><uri>http://example.org/book/book2</uri></binding>
     <binding name="who"><bnode>r1115396427r1133</bnode></binding>
   </result>
   <result>
     <binding name="book"><uri>http://example.org/book/book3</uri></binding>
     <binding name="who"><bnode>r1115396427r1133</bnode></binding>
   </result>
   <result>
     <binding name="book"><uri>http://example.org/book/book1</uri></binding>
     <binding name="who"><literal>J.K. Rowling</literal></binding>
   </result>
 </results>
</sparql>
b. CONSTRUCT with simple RDF dataset

This SPARQL query

PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>
PREFIX dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> 
CONSTRUCT { _:somebody foaf:name ?who;
                       foaf:made ?book } 
WHERE { ?book dc:creator ?who }

is conveyed to the SPARQL query service, http://my.example/sparql/, as illustrated in this HTTP trace, which is formatted in order to be readable:

GET http://my.example/sparql/?query=PREFIX+foaf%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fxmlns.com%2Ffoaf%2F0.1%2F%3E+
PREFIX+dc%3A++++++%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fpurl.org%2Fdc%2Felements%2F1.1%2F%3E+CONSTRUCT+%7B_%3Asomebody+foaf%3Aname
+%3Fwho%3B+foaf%3Amade+%3Fbook%7D+WHERE+%7B+%3Fbook+dc%3Acreator+%3Fwho+%7D
&default-graph-uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmy.example%2Fbooks HTTP/1.0
Host: my.example
User-agent: sparql-client/0.1
Accept: application/rdf+xml

That query against that RDF dataset, executed by that SPARQL query service, returns the following query result:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 20:55:11 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.29 (Unix) PHP/4.3.4 DAV/1.0.3
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/rdf+xml; charset=utf-8

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
         xmlns:ns1="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="r1_somebody">
  <ns1:name rdf:nodeID="r1_r1115396427r563"/>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="r1_r1_somebody">
  <ns1:made rdf:resource="http://example.org/book/book2"/>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="r2_r1_r1_somebody">
  <ns1:name rdf:nodeID="r2_r1115396427r563"/>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="r2_r2_r1_r1_somebody">
  <ns1:made rdf:resource="http://example.org/book/book3"/>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="r3_r2_r2_r1_r1_somebody">
  <ns1:name>J.K. Rowling</ns1:name>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="r3_r3_r2_r2_r1_r1_somebody">
  <ns1:made rdf:resource="http://example.org/book/book1"/>
</rdf:Description>

</rdf:RDF>
c. ASK with simple RDF dataset

This SPARQL query

PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> 
PREFIX dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> 
ASK WHERE { ?book dc:creator ?who }

is conveyed to the SPARQL query service, http://my.example/sparql/, as illustrated in this HTTP trace, which is formatted in order to be readable:

GET http://my.example/sparql/?query=PREFIX+foaf%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fxmlns.com%2Ffoaf%2F0.1%2F%3E+
PREFIX+dc%3A++++++%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fpurl.org%2Fdc%2Felements%2F1.1%2F%3E+ASK+WHERE+%7B+%3Fbook+dc%3Acreator+%3Fwho+%7D
&default-graph-uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmy.example%2Fbooks HTTP/1.0
Host: my.example
User-agent: sparql-client/0.1
Accept: application/xml

That query against that RDF dataset, executed by that SPARQL query service, returns the following query result:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 20:48:25 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.29 (Unix) PHP/4.3.4 DAV/1.0.3
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<sparql xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/rf1/result2">
 <head></head>
 <results>
   <boolean>true</boolean>
 </results>
</sparql>
d. DESCRIBE with simple RDF dataset

Example forthcoming...

e. SELECT with complex RDF dataset

Example forthcoming...

f. SELECT with query-only RDF dataset

Example forthcoming...

g. SELECT with ambiguous RDF dataset

Example forthcoming...

4. Privacy and Other Policy Considerations

As with any query protocol, RDF query services must take care that facts disclosed in or implied by query results do not violate applicable privacy or secrurity policies. Conversely, it is good practice to consider query interfaces when gathering data and to publish a realistic privacy policy for the benefit of everyone who contributes data.

It is impossible to identify every conceivable kind of private or sensitive information. However, addresses and credit card numbers are clearly sensitive, for example; and even the language constraints on literal queries can associate the client with a particular ethnic or language group. There is no a priori method of determining the sensitivity of any particular piece of information within the context of any given request. SPARQL query services should supply as much control over this information as possible to the provider of that information.

Query URLs and server logs contain information about clients' areas of interest. This information is clearly confidential unless otherwise indicated in a privacy policy. Storage and distribution of this data may be constrained by law in some countries.

Under-constrained queries can result in huge numbers of results and, thus, are one possible source of denial of service attacks. SPARQL query services may choose to detect under-constrained queries, impose time or memory limits on queries, or impose other restrictions to reduce the service's vulnerability to denial of service attacks.

6. References

A. Normative

[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels RFC 2119 S. Bradner March 1997
[HTTP]
Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1 R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P. Leach, T. Berners-Lee RFC2616 June 1999
[RDF-Syntax]
RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised) , D. Beckett, Editor, W3C Recommendation, 10 February 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-syntax-grammar-20040210/ . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar .
[SPARQL]
SPARQL Query Language for RDF , A. Seaborne, E. Prud'hommeaux, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 19 April 2005, http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-query-20050419/ . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/ .
[VBR]
SPARQL Variable Binding Results XML Format , D. Beckett, Editor, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 21 December 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-rdf-sparql-XMLres-20041221/ . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/ .
[WSDL2]
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 1: Core Language , J. Moreau, A. Ryman, R. Chinnici, S. Weerawarana, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 10 May 2005, http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-20050510 . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20 .
[WSDL2-Adjuncts]
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 2: Adjuncts , S. Weerawarana, H. Haas, D. Orchard, R. Chinnici, A. Lewis, J. Moreau, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 10 May 2005, http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-adjuncts-20050510 . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20-adjuncts .

B. Informative

[UC&R]
RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements , K. Clark, Editor, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 25 March 2005, http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-dawg-uc-20050325/ . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-dawg-uc/ .
[WSDL2-Primer]
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 0: Primer , K. Liu, D. Booth, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 10 May 2005, http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-primer-20050510 . Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20-primer .

7. Acknowledgments

My thanks to members of DAWG, especially Bijan Parsia, Bryan Thompson, Andy Seaborne, Steve Harris, Eric Prud'hommeaux, Yoshio FUKUSHIGE, Howard Katz, Dirk-Willem van Gulik, and Dan Connolly. Thanks as well to my UMD colleagues Jim Hendler, Ron Alford, Yarden Katz, Chris Testa, and members of the Mindlab Semantic Web Undergraduate Social. I also thank Jacek Kopecky, Morten Frederiksen, Mark Baker, Jan Algermissen, Danny Ayers, Bernd Simon, Graham Klyne, Arjohn Kampman, Tim Berners-Lee, Dan Brickley.

CVS Change Log:

 
$Log: Overview.html,v $
Revision 1.24  2018/10/09 13:31:12  denis
fix validation of xhtml documents

Revision 1.23  2017/10/02 10:30:41  denis
add fixup.js to old specs

Revision 1.22  2005/05/28 02:06:09  eric
use Ian's already published version

Revision 1.18  2005/05/27 23:08:30  ijacobs
removed links

Revision 1.17  2005/05/27 23:03:31  ijacobs
link fix

Revision 1.16  2005/05/27 23:01:02  ijacobs
anchor fixes?

Revision 1.15  2005/05/27 22:57:29  ijacobs
s/3/2

Revision 1.14  2005/05/27 22:55:15  ijacobs
style fix

Revision 1.13  2005/05/27 22:54:00  ijacobs
add an id

Revision 1.12  2005/05/27 22:52:59  ijacobs
validity fixes

Revision 1.11  2005/05/27 22:50:58  ijacobs
wd link fix

Revision 1.10  2005/05/27 22:46:38  ijacobs
fixed per Kendall Clark instructions

Revision 1.47  2005/05/23 17:30:20  connolly
- WF fixes, including using valid names for reference ids

Revision 1.46  2005/05/17 19:30:29  kclark
*** empty log message ***

Revision 1.45  2005/05/17 19:25:54  kclark
*** empty log message ***

2005/05/17 19:20:13  kclark
 - tweaked "SPARQL query" and "SPARQL query string" bits
 - very tiny edits to policy/privacy section
 - added some new TODO marker text

2005/05/14 18:08:45  kclark
Removed:
	- SparqlGraph
	- SparqlDiscovery
	- SparqlMaintenance
	- SparqlQueryX
	- Glossary
	- reference to SOAP stubs
	- XSLT stuff
	- SADDLE
	- MalformedRequest fault
	- SparqlX serialization format
	- WSDL 2.0 semantics appendix
Added:
	- example SELECT trace
	- example CONSTRUCT trace
	- example ASK trace