Fetch SPARQL Endpoint

A simple, lightweight module to send queries to SPARQL endpoints and retrieve their results in a streaming fashion.

All results are compatible with the RDFJS specification.

All SPARQL queries are supported, such as SELECT, ASK, CONSTRUCT DESCRIBE, INSERT, DELETE, ...

Internally, this library supports SPARQL results in SPARQL JSON, SPARQL XML, and Turtle.

Install

This package can be installed via npm.

$ npm install fetch-sparql-endpoint

This package also works out-of-the-box in browsers via tools such as webpack and browserify.

Usage

API

Create a new fetcher

import { SparqlEndpointFetcher } from 'fetch-sparql-endpoint';

const myFetcher = new SparqlEndpointFetcher();

Optionally, you can pass an options object with the following optional entries:

const myFetcher = new SparqlEndpointFetcher({
  // A custom HTTP method for issuing (non-update) queries, defaults to POST. Update queries are always issued via POST.
  method: 'POST',
  // A set of additional parameters that well be added to fetchAsk, fetchBindings & fetchTriples requests
  additionalUrlParams: new URLSearchParams({ infer: 'true', sameAs: 'false' }),
  // Optional default headers that will be included in each request
  defaultHeaders: new Headers(),
  // A custom fetch-API-supporting function
  fetch,
  // A custom RDFJS data factory
  dataFactory: DataFactory,
  // If variable names in bindings should be prefixed with '?', defaults to false
  prefixVariableQuestionMark: false,
  // Timeout for setting up server connection (Once a connection has been made, and the response is being parsed, the timeout does not apply anymore).
  timeout: 5000,
});

Fetch bindings

SPARQL SELECT queries returns a (promise to a) stream of bindings.

const bindingsStream = await fetcher.fetchBindings('https://dbpedia.org/sparql', 'SELECT * WHERE { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 100');
bindingsStream.on('data', bindings => console.log(bindings));

This will output bindings in the following form, where keys correspond to variables in the queries, and values and RDFJS terms:

{ s: namedNode('s1'), p: namedNode('p1'), o: namedNode('o1') }
{ s: namedNode('s2'), p: namedNode('p2'), o: namedNode('o2') }
{ s: namedNode('s3'), p: namedNode('p3'), o: namedNode('o3') }
...

Optionally, you can obtain a list of variables by listening to the 'variables' event:

const bindingsStream = await fetcher.fetchBindings('https://dbpedia.org/sparql', 'SELECT * WHERE { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 100');
bindingsStream.on('data', bindings => console.log(bindings));
// Will print [ variable('s'), variable('p'), variable('o') ]
bindingsStream.on('variables', variables => console.log(variables));

Fetch ask

SPARQL ASK queries answer with a (promise to a) boolean value.

const answer = await fetcher.fetchAsk('https://dbpedia.org/sparql', 'ASK WHERE { ?s ?p ?o }');

This will output true or false.

Fetch triples

SPARQL CONSTRUCT and SPARQL DESCRIBE queries returns a (promise to a) stream of triples.

const tripleStream = await fetcher.fetchTriples('https://dbpedia.org/sparql', 'CONSTRUCT { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 100');
tripleStream.on('data', triple => console.log(triple));

This will output RDFJS triples as follows:

triple(namedNode('s1'), namedNode('p1'), namedNode('o1'))
triple(namedNode('s2'), namedNode('p2'), namedNode('o2'))
triple(namedNode('s3'), namedNode('p3'), namedNode('o3'))
...

Fetch update

SPARQL Update queries answer with a void promise.

await fetcher.fetchUpdate('https://dbpedia.org/sparql', 'INSERT DATA { <ex:s> <ex:p> <ex:o> }');

The await will throw an error if the update has failed.

Detect query type

If you want to know the query type in order to determine which of the above fetch methods to call, then you can use the getQueryType method as follows:

// Outputs 'SELECT'
fetcher.getQueryType('SELECT * WHERE { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 100');
// Outputs 'ASK'
fetcher.getQueryType('ASK WHERE { ?s ?p ?o }');
// Outputs 'CONSTRUCT'
fetcher.getQueryType('CONSTRUCT { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 100');

This method will also throw an error if the query contains a syntax error.

Command-line

A command-line tool is provided to quickly query or update any SPARQL endpoint. With basic authentication, the username and password should be made available via process-scoped environment variables SPARQL_USERNAME and SPARQL_PASSWORD.

Usage:

Options:
  --endpoint  Send the query to this SPARQL endpoint         [string] [required]
  --query     Evaluate the given SPARQL query string                    [string]
  --file      Evaluate the SPARQL query in the given file               [string]
  --get       Send query via HTTP GET instead of POST [boolean] [default: false]
  --timeout   The timeout value in seconds to finish the query          [number]
  --auth      The type of authentication to use               [choices: "basic"]
  --version   Show version number                                      [boolean]
  --help      Show help                                                [boolean]

Examples:
  fetch-sparql-endpoint.js --endpoint       Fetch 100 triples from the DBPedia
  https://dbpedia.org/sparql --query        SPARQL endpoint
  'SELECT * WHERE { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 100'
  fetch-sparql-endpoint.js --endpoint       Run the SPARQL query from query.rq
  https://dbpedia.org/sparql --file         against the DBPedia SPARQL endpoint
  query.rq
  cat query.rq | fetch-sparql-endpoint.js   Run the SPARQL query from query.rq
  --endpoint https://dbpedia.org/sparql     against the DBPedia SPARQL endpoint

License

This software is written by Ruben Taelman.

This code is released under the MIT license.