Tabular Data RDF Reader and JSON serializer

CSV reader for RDF.rb and fully JSON serializer.

Features

RDF::Tabular parses CSV or other Tabular Data into RDF and JSON using the W3C CSVW specifications, currently undergoing development.

Parses number patterns from UAX35
Parses date formats from UAX35
Returns detailed errors and warnings using optional Logger.

Installation

Install with gem install rdf-tabular

Description

RDF::Tabular parses CSVs, TSVs, and potentially other tabular data formats. Using rules defined for W3C CSVW, it can also parse metadata files (in JSON-LD format) to find a set of tabular data files, or locate a metadata file given a CSV:

Given a CSV http://example.org/mycsv.csv look for http://example.org/mycsv.csv-metadata.json or http://example.org/metadata.json. Metadata can also be specified using the describedby link header to reference a metadata file.
Given a metadata file, locate one or more CSV files described within the metadata file.
Also, extract embedded metadata from the CSV (limited to column titles right now).

Metadata can then provide datatypes for the columns, express foreign key relationships, and associate subjects and predicates with columns. An example metadata file for the project DOAP description is:

{
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "url": "doap.csv",
  "tableSchema": {
    "aboutUrl": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular",
    "propertyUrl": "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#{_name}",
    "null": "",
    "columns": [
      {"titles": "name"},
      {"titles": "type", "propertyUrl": "rdf:type", "valueUrl": "{+type}"},
      {"titles": "homepage", "valueUrl": "{+homepage}"},
      {"titles": "license", "valueUrl": "{+license}"},
      {"titles": "shortdesc", "lang": "en"},
      {"titles": "description", "lang": "en"},
      {"titles": "created", "datatype": {"base": "date", "format": "M/d/yyyy"}},
      {"titles": "programming_language", "propertyUrl": "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#programming-language"},
      {"titles": "implements", "valueUrl": "{+implements}"},
      {"titles": "category", "valueUrl": "{+category}"},
      {"titles": "download_page", "propertyUrl": "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#download-page", "valueUrl": "{+download_page}"},
      {"titles": "mailing_list", "propertyUrl": "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#mailing-list", "valueUrl": "{+mailing_list}"},
      {"titles": "bug_database", "propertyUrl": "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#bug-database", "valueUrl": "{+bug_database}"},
      {"titles": "blog", "valueUrl": "{+blog}"},
      {"titles": "developer", "valueUrl": "{+developer}"},
      {"titles": "maintainer", "valueUrl": "{+maintainer}"},
      {"titles": "documenter", "valueUrl": "{+documenter}"},
      {"titles": "maker", "propertyUrl": "foaf:maker", "valueUrl": "{+maker}"},
      {"titles": "dc_title", "propertyUrl": "dc:title"},
      {"titles": "dc_description", "propertyUrl": "dc:description", "lang": "en"},
      {"titles": "dc_date", "propertyUrl": "dc:date", "datatype": {"base": "date", "format": "M/d/yyyy"}},
      {"titles": "dc_creator", "propertyUrl": "dc:creator", "valueUrl": "{+dc_creator}"},
      {"titles": "isPartOf", "propertyUrl": "dc:isPartOf", "valueUrl": "{+isPartOf}"}
    ]
  }
}

This associates the metadata with the CSV doap.csv, creates a common subject for all rows in the file, and a common predicate using the URI Template URI Template http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#\{_name\} which uses the name of each column (defaulted from titles) to construct a URI in the DOAP vocabulary, and constructs object URIs for object-valued properties from the contents of the column cells. In some cases, the predicates are changed on a per-column basis by using a different propertyUrl property on a given column.

This results in the following Turtle:

@prefix csvw: <http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw#> .
@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix doap: <http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#> .
@prefix earl: <http://www.w3.org/ns/earl#> .
@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#> .
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

<https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular> a doap:Project,
    earl:TestSubject,
    earl:Software;
  dc:title "RDF::Tabular";
  dc:creator <http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me>;
  dc:date "2015-01-05"^^xsd:date;
  dc:description "RDF::Tabular processes tabular data with metadata creating RDF or JSON output."@en;
  dc:isPartOf <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf>;
  doap:blog <http://greggkellogg.net/>;
  doap:bug-database <https://github.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/issues>;
  doap:category <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework>,
    <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ruby_(programming_language)>;
  doap:created "2015-01-05"^^xsd:date;
  doap:description "RDF::Tabular processes tabular data with metadata creating RDF or JSON output."@en;
  doap:developer <http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me>;
  doap:documenter <http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me>;
  doap:download-page <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular>;
  doap:homepage <https://ruby-rdf.github.io/rdf-tabular>;
  doap:implements <http://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-data-model/>,
    <http://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-metadata/>,
    <http://www.w3.org/TR/csv2rdf/>,
    <http://www.w3.org/TR/csv2json/>;
  doap:license <https://unlicense.org/1.0/>;
  doap:mailing-list <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-ruby/>;
  doap:maintainer <http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me>;
  doap:name "RDF::Tabular";
  doap:programming-language "Ruby";
  doap:shortdesc "Tabular Data RDF Reader and JSON serializer."@en;
  foaf:maker <http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me> .

 [
    a csvw:TableGroup;
    csvw:table [
      a csvw:Table;
      csvw:row [
        a csvw:Row;
        csvw:describes <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular>;
        csvw:rownum 1;
        csvw:url <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=2>
      ], [
        a csvw:Row;
        csvw:describes <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular>;
        csvw:rownum 2;
        csvw:url <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=3>
      ], [
        a csvw:Row;
        csvw:describes <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular>;
        csvw:rownum 3;
        csvw:url <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=4>
      ], [
        a csvw:Row;
        csvw:describes <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular>;
        csvw:rownum 4;
        csvw:url <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=5>
      ];
      csvw:url <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv>
    ];
    prov:wasGeneratedBy [
      a prov:Activity;
      prov:endedAtTime "2022-04-20T12:45:20.616-07:00"^^xsd:dateTime;
      prov:qualifiedUsage [
        a prov:Usage;
        prov:entity <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv>;
        prov:hadRole csvw:csvEncodedTabularData
      ], [
        a prov:Usage;
        prov:entity <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv-metadata.json>;
        prov:hadRole csvw:tabularMetadata
      ];
      prov:startedAtTime "2022-04-20T12:45:20.351-07:00"^^xsd:dateTime;
      prov:wasAssociatedWith <https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular>
    ]
  ] .

The provenance on table-source information can be excluded by using the :minimal option to the reader.

It can also generate JSON output (not complete JSON-LD, but compatible with it), using the RDF::Tabular::Reader#to_json method:

{
  "tables": [{
    "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv",
    "row": [{
      "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=2",
      "rownum": 1,
      "describes": [{
        "@id": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#name": "RDF::Tabular",
        "@type": "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#Project",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#homepage": "https://ruby-rdf.github.io/rdf-tabular",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#license": "https://unlicense.org/1.0/",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#shortdesc": "Tabular Data RDF Reader and JSON serializer.",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#description": "RDF::Tabular processes tabular data with metadata creating RDF or JSON output.",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#created": "2015-01-05",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#programming-language": "Ruby",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#implements": "http://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-data-model/",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#category": "http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#download-page": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#mailing-list": "http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-ruby/",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#bug-database": "https://github.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/issues",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#blog": "http://greggkellogg.net/",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#developer": "http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#maintainer": "http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#documenter": "http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me",
        "foaf:maker": "http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me",
        "dc:title": "RDF::Tabular",
        "dc:description": "RDF::Tabular processes tabular data with metadata creating RDF or JSON output.",
        "dc:date": "2015-01-05",
        "dc:creator": "http://greggkellogg.net/foaf#me",
        "dc:isPartOf": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf"
      }]
    }, {
      "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=3",
      "rownum": 2,
      "describes": [{
        "@id": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular",
        "@type": "http://www.w3.org/ns/earl#TestSubject",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#implements": "http://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-metadata/",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#category": "http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ruby_(programming_language)"
      }]
    }, {
      "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=4",
      "rownum": 3,
      "describes": [{
        "@id": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular",
        "@type": "http://www.w3.org/ns/earl#Software",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#implements": "http://www.w3.org/TR/csv2rdf/"
      }]
    }, {
      "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv#row=5",
      "rownum": 4,
      "describes": [{
        "@id": "https://rubygems.org/gems/rdf-tabular",
        "http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#implements": "http://www.w3.org/TR/csv2json/"
      }]
    }]
  }]
}

Tutorials

Command Line

When the linkeddata gem is installed, RDF.rb includes a rdf executable which acts as a wrapper to perform a number of different operations on RDF files using available readers and writers, including RDF::Tabular. The commands specific to RDF::Tabular is

tabular-json: Parse the CSV file and emit data as Tabular JSON

To use RDF::Tabular specific features, you must use the --input-format tabular option to the rdf executable.

Other rdf commands and options treat CSV as a standard RDF format.

Example usage:

rdf serialize https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv \
  --output-format ttl
rdf tabular-json --input-format tabular https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv
rdf validate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruby-rdf/rdf-tabular/develop/etc/doap.csv --validate

Note that the --validate option must be used with the validate (or other) command to detect parse-time errors in addition to validating any resulting RDF triples.

RDF Reader

RDF::Tabular also acts as a normal RDF reader, using the standard RDF.rb Reader interface:

graph = RDF::Graph.load("etc/doap.csv", minimal: true)

Documentation

Full documentation available on RubyDoc

Principal Classes

Dependencies

Ruby (>= 3.0)
RDF.rb (~> 3.3)
JSON (>= 2.6)

Installation

The recommended installation method is via RubyGems. To install the latest official release of the RDF::Tabular gem, do:

% [sudo] gem install rdf-tabular

Mailing List

lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-ruby/

Author

Gregg Kellogg - greggkellogg.net/

Contributing

Do your best to adhere to the existing coding conventions and idioms.
Don’t use hard tabs, and don’t leave trailing whitespace on any line.
Do document every method you add using YARD annotations. Read the tutorial or just look at the existing code for examples.
Don’t touch the rdf-tabular.gemspec, VERSION or AUTHORS files. If you need to change them, do so on your private branch only.
Do feel free to add yourself to the CREDITS file and the corresponding list in the the README. Alphabetical order applies.
Do note that in order for us to merge any non-trivial changes (as a rule of thumb, additions larger than about 15 lines of code), we need an explicit public domain dedication on record from you, which you will be asked to agree to on the first commit to a repo within the organization. Note that the agreement applies to all repos in the Ruby RDF organization.

License

This is free and unencumbered public domain software. For more information, see unlicense.org/ or the accompanying UNLICENSE file.