Tripliser

Tripliser is a Java library and command-line tool for creating triple graphs from XML. It is particularly suitable for data exhibiting any of the following characteristics:

Messy - missing data, badly formatted data, changeable structure)
Bulky - large volumes
Volatile - ongoing changes to data and structure, e.g. feeds

Other non-RDF source data may be supported in future such as CSV and SQL databases.

It is designed as an alternative to XSLT conversion, providing the following advantages:

Easy-to-read mapping format - concisely describing each mapping
Robust - error or partial failure tolerant
Detailed reporting - comprehensive feedback on the successes and failures of the conversion process
Extensible - custom functions, flexible API
Efficient - facilities for processing data in large volumes with minimal memory usage

As an introductory explanation of how tripliser works, here is a practical example.

Quick start

requires Java 1.6

wget https://github.com/downloads/daverog/tripliser/tripliser-1.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar
wget https://github.com/daverog/tripliser/raw/master/src/main/sh/triplise
chmod u=r+x triplise
./triplise [input] [mapping]

To run a quick example, using the code shown in the example, run the following:

wget -O universe-mapping.xml https://github.com/daverog/tripliser/raw/master/src/test/resources/examples/mappings/universe.xml
wget https://github.com/daverog/tripliser/raw/master/src/test/resources/examples/source/universe.xml
./triplise universe.xml universe-mapping.xml
cat universe.xml.rdf

Example

Premise

You have an XML file containing data, which you wish to express in RDF:

Source XML file (universe.xml)

Solution

The following mapping file is created to convert the data. (Do not worry about every detail, as this example is used elsewhere in the documentation where each part is explained).

Mapping file (universe-mapping.xml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
			<rdf-mapping xmlns="http://www.daverog.org/rdf-mapping" strict="false">
				<constants>
					<constant name="objectsUri" value="http://objects.theuniverse.org/" />
				</constants>
				<namespaces>
					<namespace prefix="xsd" url="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" />
					<namespace prefix="rdfs" url="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" />
					<namespace prefix="dc" url="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" />
					<namespace prefix="universe" url="http://theuniverse.org/" />
				</namespaces>
				<graph query="//universe-objects" name="universe-objects" comment="A graph for objects in the universe">
					<resource query="stars/star">
						<about prepend="${objectsUri}" append="#star" query="@id" />
						<properties>
							<property name="rdf:type" resource="true" value="universe:Star"/>
							<property name="dc:title" query="name" />
							<property name="universe:id" query="@id" />
							<property name="universe:spectralClass" query="spectralClass" />
						</properties>
					</resource>
					<resource query="planets/planet">
						<about prepend="${objectsUri}" append="#planet" query="@id" />
						<properties>
							<property name="rdf:type" resource="true" value="universe:Planet"/>
							<property name="dc:title" query="name" />
							<property name="universe:id" query="@id" />
							<property name="universe:adjective" query="adjective" />
							<property name="universe:numberOfSatellites" dataType="xsd:int" query="satellites" />
						</properties>
					</resource>
				</graph>
			</rdf-mapping>

The following command is run:

triplise universe.xml universe-mapping.xml

This produces the following RDF file:

RDF output (universe.xml.rdf)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
			<rdf:RDF
			    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
			    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
			    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#"
			    xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
			    xmlns:universe="http://theuniverse.org/" >
			  <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://objects.theuniverse.org/sun#star">
			    <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://theuniverse.org/Star"/>
			    <dc:title>Sun</dc:title>
			    <universe:id>sun</universe:id>
			    <universe:spectralClass>G2V</universe:spectralClass>
			  </rdf:Description>
			  <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://objects.theuniverse.org/jupiter#planet">
			    <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://theuniverse.org/Planet"/>
			    <dc:title>Jupiter</dc:title>
			    <universe:id>jupiter</universe:id>
			    <universe:adjective>Jovian</universe:adjective>
			    <universe:numberOfSatellites rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#int">63</universe:numberOfSatellites>
			  </rdf:Description>
			</rdf:RDF>

That's all there is to it.

In Java

To do the same as above, but in Java, you'll need to run the following code:

Credits

Tripliser was designed and developed by David Rogers with assistance from Rija Menage.

d dot p dot rogers at gmail dot com