Learning SPARQL

Gain hands-on experience with SPARQL, the RDF query language that’s bringing new possibilities to semantic web, linked data, and big data projects. This updated and expanded edition shows you how to use SPARQL 1.1 with a variety of tools to retrieve, manipulate, and federate data from the public web as well as from private sources.

Author Bob DuCharme has you writing simple queries right away before providing background on how SPARQL fits into RDF technologies. Using short examples that you can run yourself with open source software, you’ll learn how to update, add to, and delete data in RDF datasets.

• Get the big picture on RDF, linked data, and the semantic web
• Use SPARQL to find bad data and create new data from existing data
• Use datatype metadata and functions in your queries
• Learn techniques and tools to help your queries run more efficiently
• Use RDF Schemas and OWL ontologies to extend the power of your queries
• Discover the roles that SPARQL can play in your applications

Bob DuCharme (http://www.snee.com/bob) is a solutions architect at TopQuadrant, a provider of software for modeling, developing, and deploying semantic web applications. He came to TopQuadrant from Innodata Isogen, where he did system and architecture analysis and design for a wide range of global publishing clients as well as cochairing the 2008 Linked Data Planet conference in New York City. Earlier in his career, he oversaw SGML and XML development at Moody's Investors Service and then moved on to LexisNexis, where he did data and systems architecture as they made the transition to XML-based systems.

In the XML.com newsletter, editor Kendall Clark once wrote “Does anyone write tech prose as clear as Bob?” Bob is the author of Manning Publications’ “XSLT Quickly,” Prentice Hall’s “XML: The Annotated Specification” and “SGML CD,” and McGraw Hill’s “Operating Systems Handbook.” He's written over 70 pieces for XML.com and has contributed to Dr. Dobb’s Journal, IBM developerWorks, Nodalities, DevX, perl.com, XML Magazine, XML Journal, XML Developer, O’Reilly Books’ “XML Hacks,” and Prentice Hall’s “XML Handbook.” Bob received his BA in Religion from Columbia University and his Master’s in Computer Science from New York University. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife Jennifer and their daughters Madeline and Alice.