Advertisement
Published in:
2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Shape Constraints and Expressions
Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.
Select sections of text to find matching patents with Artificial Intelligence. powered by
Select sections of text to find additional relevant content using AI-assisted search. powered by
In this chapter, we introduce two languages for describing shapes and constraints for RDF graphs, namely the Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) and the Shape Expressions Language (ShEx 2.1). Both languages allow for defining constraints over RDF graphs in terms of what data are expected, what data are obligatory, what data are allowed, and what data are disallowed. This in turn allows RDF graphs to be validated with respect to the specified constraints. We first look at SHACL, describing the SHACL-Core fragment and the constraints it allows. We then discuss how SHACL-SPARQL allows for further constraints to be expressed using SPARQL query syntax. Turning to ShEx, we describe its syntaxes, and how it differs from SHACL. We outline and provide a semantics for an abstract shapes syntax that generalises SHACL and ShEx. We conclude with a general discussion of the role of shapes languages on the Web of Data, as well as open challenges.