RDF::Flow - RDF data flow pipeline
version 0.178
# define RDF sources (see RDF::Flow::Source) $src = rdflow( "mydata.ttl", name => "RDF file as source" ); $src = rdflow( "mydirectory", name => "directory with RDF files as source" ); $src = rdflow( \&mysub, name => "code reference as source" ); $src = rdflow( $model, name => "RDF::Trine::Model as source" ); # using a RDF::Trine::Model as source is equivalent to: $src = RDF::Flow->new( sub { my $env = shift; my $uri = RDF::Flow::uri( $env ); return $model->bounded_description( RDF::Trine::iri( $uri ) ); } ); # retrieve RDF data $rdf = $src->retrieve( $uri ); $rdf = $src->retrieve( $env ); # uri constructed from $env # code reference as source (more detailed example) $src = rdflow( sub { my $uri = RDF::Flow::uri( $env ); my $model = RDF::Trine::Model->temporary_model; add_some_statements( $uri, $model ); return $model; });
RDF::Flow provides a simple framework on top of RDF::Trine to define and connect RDF sources in data flow pipes. In a nutshell, a source is connected to some data (possibly RDF but it could also wrap any other forms) and you can retrieve RDF data from it, based on a request URI:
+--------+ Request (URI)--->+ Source +-->Response (RDF) +---+----+ ^ Data (possibly RDF)
The base class to define RDF sources is RDF::Flow::Source, so please have a look at the documentation of this class. Multiple sources can be connected to data flow networks: Predefined sources exist to combine sources (RDF::Flow::Union, RDF::Flow::Pipeline, RDF::Flow::Cascade), to access LinkedData (RDF::Flow::LinkedData), to cache requests (RDF::Flow::Cached), and for testing (RDF::Flow::Dummy).
By default this module only exports rdflow as constructor shortcut. Additional shortcut functions can be exported on request. The :all tag exports all functions.
rdflow
:all
Shortcut to create a new source with RDF::Flow::Source.
cached
Shortcut to create a new cached source with RDF::Flow::Cached.
cascade
Shortcut to create a new source cascade with RDF::Flow::Cascade.
pipeline
Shortcut to create a new source pipeline with RDF::Flow::Pipeline.
previous
A source that always returns rdflow.data without modification.
rdflow.data
union
Shortcut to create a new union of sources with RDF::Flow::Union.
RDF::Flow uses Log::Contextual for logging. By default no logging messages are created, unless you enable a logger. To simply see what's going on in detail, enable a simple logger:
use Log::Contextual::SimpleLogger; use Log::Contextual qw( :log ), -logger => Log::Contextual::SimpleLogger->new({ levels => [qw(trace)]});
Basically you must only derive from RDF::Flow::Source and create the method retrieve_rdf:
retrieve_rdf
package MySource; use parent 'RDF::Flow::Source'; use RDF::Flow::Source qw(:util); # if you need utilty functions sub retrieve_rdf { my ($self, $env) = @_; my $uri = $env->{'rdflow.uri'}; # ... your logic here ... return $model; }
The current version of this module does not check for circular references if you connect multiple sources. Maybe environment variable such as rdflow.depth or rdflow.stack will be introduced. Surely performance can also be increased.
rdflow.depth
rdflow.stack
You can use this module together with Plack::Middleware::RDF::Flow (available at at github) to create Linked Data applications.
There are some CPAN modules for general data flow processing, such as Flow and DataFlow. As RDF::Flow is inspired by PSGI, you should also have a look at the PSGI toolkit Plack. Some RDF sources can also be connected with RDF::Trine::Model::Union and RDF::Trine::Model::StatementFilter. More RDF-related Perl modules are collected at http://www.perlrdf.org/.
Research references on RDF pipelining can be found in the presentation "RDF Data Pipelines for Semantic Data Federation", more elaborated and not connected to this module: http://dbooth.org/2011/pipeline/. Another framework for RDF integration based on a pipe model is RDF Gears: https://bitbucket.org/feliksik/rdfgears/.
Jakob Voß <voss@gbv.de>
This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Jakob Voß.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
To install RDF::Flow, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm RDF::Flow
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install RDF::Flow
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.