Query any file with SPARQL

Get started

You need Java 21 or later. This turns a CSV file into schema.org triples.

1. Download the command-line tool

   curl -L -O https://github.com/SPARQL-Anything/sparql.anything/releases/download/v1.3.0/sparql-anything-v1.3.0.jar

   Or pick a jar from the release page. The -geosparql variants add GeoSPARQL support.

2. Write a query

   Save this as query.rq, next to the people.csv file from the example above. Options go on fxe:properties, or in the SERVICE IRI as in the example at the top of the page.

   PREFIX fxe:    <http://sparql.xyz/facade-x/engine/>
   PREFIX xyz:    <http://sparql.xyz/facade-x/data/>
   PREFIX schema: <https://schema.org/>
   
   CONSTRUCT {
     ?person a schema:Person ;
       schema:name ?name ;
       schema:homeLocation ?city .
   } WHERE {
     SERVICE <x-sparql-anything:> {
       fxe:properties fxe:location "people.csv" ; fxe:csv.headers true .
       ?row xyz:id ?id ; xyz:name ?name ; xyz:city ?city .
     }
     BIND (IRI(CONCAT("http://example.org/person/", ?id)) AS ?person)
   }

3. Run it

   java -jar sparql-anything-v1.3.0.jar -q query.rq

   <http://example.org/person/1>
           a                    schema:Person ;
           schema:homeLocation  "London" ;
           schema:name          "Ada" .
   
   <http://example.org/person/2>
           a                    schema:Person ;
           schema:homeLocation  "New York" ;
           schema:name          "Grace" .

   Use -f to pick another output format, such as nt or jsonld, and -o to write to a file. See the command-line reference.

pip install pysparql-anything

import pysparql_anything as sa
engine = sa.SparqlAnything()
engine.run(query="query.rq", format="ttl")

java -jar sparql-anything-server-v1.3.0.jar

Features

Supported formats

• CSV and TSV
• JSON
• XML
• HTML
• Spreadsheets (XLS, XLSX)
• Word documents (DOCX)
• Slides (PPTX)
• Markdown
• YAML
• BibTeX
• Plain text
• RDF
• Zip, Tar and folders
• Binary files

Image metadata (EXIF) is also supported. You can add formats through the extension mechanism.

Publications

If you use SPARQL Anything in your work, please cite the ACM TOIT article. Cite the TGDK article for the formal account of Façade-X data access.

Reference publications

1. Knowledge graph construction with a façade: a unified method to access heterogeneous data sources on the web

   Luigi Asprino, Enrico Daga, Aldo Gangemi, Paul Mulholland. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology 23(1), 1–31, 2023. DOI

   BibTeX

   @article{asprino2023knowledge,
     title={Knowledge graph construction with a fa{\c{c}}ade: a unified method to access heterogeneous data sources on the web},
     author={Asprino, Luigi and Daga, Enrico and Gangemi, Aldo and Mulholland, Paul},
     journal={ACM Transactions on Internet Technology},
     volume={23},
     number={1},
     pages={1--31},
     year={2023},
     publisher={ACM New York, NY},
     doi={10.1145/3555312}
   }

2. Towards a Theory of Façade-X Data Access: Satisfiability of SPARQL Basic Graph Patterns

   Luigi Asprino, Enrico Daga. Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge 4(2), 5:1–5:46, 2026. DOI, Code

   BibTeX

   @article{asprino2026tgdk,
     author={Asprino, Luigi and Daga, Enrico},
     title={{Towards a Theory of Fa{\c{c}}ade-X Data Access: Satisfiability of SPARQL Basic Graph Patterns}},
     journal={Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge},
     volume={4},
     number={2},
     pages={5:1--5:46},
     year={2026},
     publisher={Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
     doi={10.4230/TGDK.4.2.5}
   }

3. Facade-X: an opinionated approach to SPARQL Anything

   Enrico Daga, Luigi Asprino, Paul Mulholland, Aldo Gangemi. Studies on the Semantic Web 53, 58–73, IOS Press, 2021. arXiv

   BibTeX

   @article{daga2021facade,
     title={Facade-X: an opinionated approach to SPARQL Anything},
     author={Daga, Enrico and Asprino, Luigi and Mulholland, Paul and Gangemi, Aldo},
     journal={Studies on the Semantic Web},
     volume={53},
     pages={58--73},
     year={2021},
     publisher={IOS Press}
   }

Other publications

1. PySPARQL Anything Showcase

   Marco Ratta, Enrico Daga, Luigi Asprino. ESWC 2024 Posters and Demos, 2024. PDF

   BibTeX

   @inproceedings{ratta2024demo,
     title={PySPARQL Anything Showcase},
     author={Ratta, Marco and Daga, Enrico and Asprino, Luigi},
     booktitle={ESWC 2024 Posters and Demos},
     year={2024}
   }

2. Streamlining Knowledge Graph Construction with a façade: The SPARQL Anything project

   Luigi Asprino, Enrico Daga, Justin Dowdy, Paul Mulholland, Aldo Gangemi, Marco Ratta. ENDORSE: The European Data Conference on Reference Data and Semantics, 2023. arXiv (technical architecture report)

   BibTeX

   @inproceedings{asprino2023streamlining,
     title={Streamlining Knowledge Graph Construction with a fa{\c{c}}ade: The SPARQL Anything project},
     author={Asprino, Luigi and Daga, Enrico and Dowdy, Justin and Mulholland, Paul and Gangemi, Aldo and Ratta, Marco},
     booktitle={ENDORSE: The European Data Conference on Reference Data and Semantics},
     year={2023},
     publisher={Publications Office of the European Union}
   }

3. Knowledge Graph Construction from MusicXML: an empirical investigation with SPARQL Anything

   Marco Ratta, Enrico Daga. Musical Heritage Knowledge Graphs Workshop (MHKG) at ISWC 2022, 2022. DOI

   BibTeX

   @inproceedings{ratta2022knowledge,
     title={Knowledge Graph Construction from MusicXML: an empirical investigation with SPARQL Anything},
     author={Ratta, Marco and Daga, Enrico},
     booktitle={Musical Heritage Knowledge Graphs Workshop (MHKG) at ISWC 2022},
     year={2022},
     doi={10.5281/zenodo.7261671}
   }