RDF Adapter

ArangoRDF allows you to export graphs from ArangoDB into RDF and vice-versa

RDF is a standard model for data interchange on the Web. RDF has features that facilitate data merging even if the underlying schemas differ, and it specifically supports the evolution of schemas over time without requiring all the data consumers to be changed.

RDF extends the linking structure of the Web to use URIs to name the relationship between things as well as the two ends of the link (this is usually referred to as a “triple”). Using this simple model, it allows structured and semi-structured data to be mixed, exposed, and shared across different applications.

This linking structure forms a directed, labeled graph, where the edges represent the named link between two resources, represented by the graph nodes. This graph view is the easiest possible mental model for RDF and is often used in easy-to-understand visual explanations.

Resources

Installation

To install the latest release of ArangoRDF, run the following command:

pip install arango-rdf

Quickstart

The following examples show how to get started with ArangoRDF. Check also the interactive tutorial .

from rdflib import Graph
from arango import ArangoClient
from arango_rdf import ArangoRDF

db = ArangoClient().db()

adbrdf = ArangoRDF(db)

def beatles():
    g = Graph()
    g.parse("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArangoDB-Community/ArangoRDF/main/tests/data/rdf/beatles.ttl", format="ttl")
    return g

RDF to ArangoDB

Note: RDF-to-ArangoDB functionality has been implemented using concepts described in the paper Transforming RDF-star to Property Graphs: A Preliminary Analysis of Transformation Approaches . So we offer two transformation approaches:

  1. RDF-Topology Preserving Transformation (RPT) 
  2. Property Graph Transformation (PGT) 
# 1. RDF-Topology Preserving Transformation (RPT)
adbrdf.rdf_to_arangodb_by_rpt(name="BeatlesRPT", rdf_graph=beatles(), overwrite_graph=True)

# 2. Property Graph Transformation (PGT) 
adbrdf.rdf_to_arangodb_by_pgt(name="BeatlesPGT", rdf_graph=beatles(), overwrite_graph=True)

ArangoDB to RDF 

# pip install arango-datasets
from arango_datasets import Datasets

name = "OPEN_INTELLIGENCE_ANGOLA"
Datasets(db).load(name)

# 1. Graph to RDF
rdf_graph = adbrdf.arangodb_graph_to_rdf(name, rdf_graph=Graph())

# 2. Collections to RDF
rdf_graph_2 = adbrdf.arangodb_collections_to_rdf(
    name,
    rdf_graph=Graph(),
    v_cols={"Event", "Actor", "Source"},
    e_cols={"eventActor", "hasSource"},
)

# 3. Metagraph to RDF
rdf_graph_3 = adbrdf.arangodb_to_rdf(
    name=name,
    rdf_graph=Graph(),
    metagraph={
        "vertexCollections": {
            "Event": {"date", "description", "fatalities"},
            "Actor": {"name"}
        },
        "edgeCollections": {
            "eventActor": {}
        },
    },
)

Terminology

Literals

In RDF, even literal values are referenced by edges. Literals cannot have outgoing edges (i.e., cannot be the subject of a statement). RDF uses the XSD type system for literals, so the string “Fred” is represented as "Fred"^^xsd:String or fully expanded as "Fred" ^^http://…". Literals can also contain language and locale tags, for example, "cat@en" ^^xsd:String and "chat@fr"^^xsd:String. These language tags can be useful and would ideally be preserved.

Literals could be added as a property instead of creating a separate vertex; this takes better advantage of using a property graph. If you are coming from a triple store or downloading your data using a SPARQL  query you could handle these properties when exporting.

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)

Prefixes

In RDF, it is common to use namespace prefixes  with references for ease of parsing. This can be easily handled with a property graph in a few ways. The easiest approach is to add the statement prefixes to the document. This keeps the prefixes close to the data but results in a lot of duplicated fields. Another approach would be to append the prefix and form the full URI as a property.

Identifiers

URIs (e.g http://dbpedia.org/resource/) are used as universal identifiers in RDF but contain contain special characters, namely : and /, which make them not suitable for use as an ArangoDB _key attribute. Consequently, a hashing algorithm is used within ArangoRDF to store the URI as an ArangoDB Vertex.

Blank Nodes

Blank nodes are identifiers that have local scope and cannot (must not) be referenced externally. Blank nodes are usually used in structures like lists and other situations where it is inconvenient to create URIs. They will cause problems when reconciling differences between graphs. Hashing these values as well is a way to work around them but as they are considered temporary identifiers in the RDF world they could pose consistency issues in your RDF graph.

Serializations

There are numerous RDF serializations, including XML and JSON based serializations and gzipped serializations. Third party libraries will likely handle all of the serializations but it is a step that may effect how data is imported.

Ontology, Taxonomy, Class Inheritance, and RDFS

The final consideration is something that for many is the core of RDF and semantic data: Ontologies . Not just ontologies but also class inheritance, and schema validation. One method would be to add the ontology in a similar way to what has been suggested for the RDF graphs as ontologies are usually structured in the same way (or can be).

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