Talk:SPARQL

Wikimedia SPARQL endpoints
Not a single word on https://query.wikidata.org/ ??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.79.179.26 (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Acronym
The acronym definition was recently anonymously changed from “SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language” to “Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language.” The W3C Candidate Recommendation (6 April 2006) still uses the former. Is there a reference for it being changed? If it has changed, this article should be edited to not call it a recursive acronym. —Fleminra 01:32, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

- The acronym change seems spurious, I've changed it back. See proposal, working group resolution Danja 17:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Who's using SPARQL?
If SPARQL is such a good thing why is everybody not using it? Another standard the query language SQL is used everywhere in the database world. Perhaps the answer is too general and does not belong in this article. Newschapmj1 (talk) 20:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "Everyone" is, for meanings of everyone that extend to those querying triple stores rather than the Codd-model RDBMS that SQL addresses. Rather we should ask why triple stores and tools for working with semi-structured data (data that has an emergent structure, but not a prior published schema to say what this will be) are still so rare, compared to shoe-horning this same sort of data into rigid RDBMS schema that make it difficult to work with. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I know this is an old post but this (the original post) is like someone arguing in the 1980's "If object-oriented programming is such a good thing why is everybody not using it? Another standard is COBOL which is used everywhere" which was still mostly true for corporate computing in the early 80's. The point is that there isn't just one programming or query language and the fact that people still use SQL doesn't mean SPARQL isn't incredibly powerful and useful. As is SQL for that matter. They have different strengths and weaknesses. As Andy points out SPARQL is for triplestores SQL for relational databases. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:14, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Dead link
The article at the link "Berners-Lee looks for Web's big leap", is no longer available. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.122.33 (talk) 22:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ref 9 is deadlink -- is there are an alternative source? ^ "D2R Server". Retrieved 2012- 02-4.

For example, the following query returns names and emails of every person in the world.
I'm sorry, I don't believe you. Please, give me a source verifying the existence of a piece of software that is capable of returning the the names and email addresses of every person in the world. Even ignoring the fact that the majority of persons in the world still don't have email addresses, it is clear that there is nothing approaching a global catalogue of the names of the entire human population, and I take any claim to the contrary with _extreme_ suspicion. Roy Badami (talk) 20:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the claim to return every result in the world is hyperbolic and should probably be removed. It would return all the names and addresses in the dataset that the query engine had access to. I guess it could be claimed that the query is asking for all the names and email address in the world but the result will only contain answers in the dataset that it has access to.Zachary Whitley

Loose Claims of Unambiguity
The following seems like a very loose claim to make:

"Notice that this global unambiguity roots in the fact that every identifier in SPARQL, URI, is unambiguous, unlike "email" or "e-mail" normally used in SQL."

Ultimately URIs are just symbols. If we all agreed on "email" as a symbol, it would have just as much global unambiguity as FOAF or whatever URI based symbols might... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.117.243 (talk) 00:36, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

ontologies, mapping
I removed this paragraph

..assuming the ontologies in use to describe a person are mapped to  FOAF via rules from whatever ontology the original relations were in. This illustrates the Semantic Web's vision of treating the Web as a  single enormous database. Notice that this global unambiguity roots in the fact that every identifier in SPARQL, URI, is unambiguous, unlike "email" or "e-mail" normally used in SQL.

for the following reasons: No ontologies are necessary for this query to run against a set of triples that have foaf:Person, foaf:name, and foaf:mbox triples. Ontologies are useful for inferencing, but no inferencing is demonstrated here, and certainly no mapping is necessary here. The use of URIs as unambiguous global identifiers is important in RDF, but it is not demonstrated by this query. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobdc (talk • contribs) 16:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Short Language Description?
There are three reasons I'm asking for it:
 * 1) The links below the article are marked as legacy.
 * 2) Even though I could then navigate to the more up-to-date version, the original document is vast (as is the case with the rest of W3C papers bloated with formulaic blabbering). I couldn't work my way through the examples (they aren't intuitive enough to speak for themselves), so at least the bits of grammar required to explain the examples would be useful, I think.
 * 3) For example, the Wiki page dedicated to SQL has the language basics in it (the list of operators / keywords etc.) 109.64.130.34 (talk) 19:06, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

"SPARQL endpoint" != "SPARQL"
"SPARQL" is a query language. "SPARQL endpoint" is a service interface. Therefore, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARQL_endpoint should not be redirected to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARQL. "SPARQL endpoint" should get its own article. -- 2018-07-15, metaphysicus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.188.54.127 (talk) 16:41, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I mean it is a question of judgement but there isn't that much content in the SPARQL article right now and unless there is a huge amount on endpoints they can be covered in the same article as SPARQL. The question isn't if it is the same as SPARQL, of course it's not, the question is: are there enough good sources that specifically talk about SPARQL endpoints rather than SPARQL and is there enough material for an independent article on SPARQL end points. It's like saying that a Java class isn't the same as Java. Yes, that is true but that doesn't mean that we need a special article on Java classes. The description of what an end point is, is currently pretty sparse in the article. If and when there is a whole section devoted to SPARQL endpoints that is large enough to justify a new article I think it is logical to redirect to this article. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:31, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I ultimately agree. However, at present there is no dedicated section within the SPARQL article which articulates the definition and function of an endpoint, and there is minimal mention about endpoints at all, specifically "This query can be distributed to multiple SPARQL endpoints (services that accept SPARQL queries and return results), computed, and results gathered, a procedure known as federated query." Before a dedicated article is created, I think an overview of endpoints needs to be written within a dedicated section of the SPARQL article, immediately following the SPARQL section, to address at the very least 1. What is a SPARQL endpoint?

2. In what forms do endpoints appear on the Web? 1. SPARQL query form (SPARQL query via HTTP POST with URL-encoded parameters or SPARQL query via HTTP POST directly; to be distinguished from SPARQL update via POST),

2. SPARQL query URL (SPARQL via HTTP GET; to be distinguished from Graph Store HTTP Protocol),

3. any other form?;

3. a summary of the articles returned by searching ["SPARQL endpoint"], covering such categories as 1. Implementations and Technologies (Category:Graph databases / Category:Triplestores )

2. endpoint service description (HTTP GET/HTTP Accept request header /HTTP X-endpoint-description response header)

3. endpoint services (e.g. Institution-hosted Endpoints)

4. related concepts (e.g. Semantic publishing, Web annotation, SPARQL "property paths" mentioned in Regular path query)with the latter points written into sub-sections. For the subsection addressing 2b (SPARQL query via HTTP GET) there should be an article created, possibly with it's own direct for "sparql/?query URL", with the title "SPARQL query URL" with a sub-topic redirect to the subsection. Mattmill30 (talk) 12:12, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:08, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * SPARQL logo.png
 * SPARQL is a standard from the W3C so it is open source and the specification (and I'm sure the logo) are covered by some version of a "copy left" license, i.e., it can be freely used as long as it is not for profit so Wikipedia should be able to use the logo. My guess is the problem is that whoever used the logo just didn't fill out the appropriate form. I hate dealing with images, I'm just not good at it, but if I get a chance I will see if I can find a usable logo and add the appropriate justification but if anyone else wants to take a shot please do so. The article should have the appropriate logo. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Here is a file with all the W3C Semantic Web logos and the policies on use: W3C Semantic Web Logos Hopefully, someone who is better at graphics than I am can use the appropriate image and fill out the appropriate form. If no one does so in a reasonable amount of time I may give it a shot but as I said, I'm not good at working with graphics. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 01:48, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

SPARQL Acronym
just changed the name at the beginning of the article to Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language. I have the book that he sites (Programming the Semantic Web) and it does indeed say that but I'm pretty sure they're wrong. Bob Ducharme in the first chapter of his book Learning SPARQL says "The name is a recursive acronym for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language, which is described by a set of specifications from the W3C." Which was the previous definition. Ducharme's book is more recent and is the book I see most quoted as the definitive SPARQL book. I looked in some W3C documents and oddly couldn't find a definition of the acronym. But I'm in the middle of some other work now. I'm going to leave it as is for now but when I have time I'm going to look for additional references. I'm virtually positive that I've read other definitions that all say it is a recursive name and the S stands for "SPARQL" not "Simple". --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:07, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I just found another reference. Semantic Web Programming by John Hebeler et. al. published by Wiley.  On p. 31 (it's the Kindle version so may be different than the paper version) At the beginning of the section: Semantic Query Endpoint (dbpedia.org/sparql) they also define it as a recursive acronym: SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language. I'm going to revert the edit. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:20, 28 October 2021 (UTC)