Turtle (original) (raw)
Abstract
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a general-purpose language for representing information in the Web.
This document defines a textual syntax for RDF called Turtle that allows an RDF graph to be completely written in a compact and natural text form, with abbreviations for common usage patterns and datatypes. Turtle provides levels of compatibility with the existingN-Triples format as well as the triple pattern syntax of theSPARQL W3C Recommendation.
Status of This Document
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
Turtle is already a reasonably settled serialization of RDF. Many implementations of Turtle already exist, we are hoping for feedback from those existing implementers and other people deciding that now would be a good time to support Turtle. There are still a few rough edges that need polishing, and better alignment with the SPARQL triple patterns. The working group does not expect to make any large changes to the existing syntax.
This document was published by the RDF Working Group as a First Public Working Draft. This document is intended to become a W3C Recommendation. If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to public-rdf-comments@w3.org (subscribe, archives). All feedback is welcome.
Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. An Introduction to Turtle (Informative)
- 3. Syntax for IRIs, Literals and Blank Nodes
- 4. Turtle Grammar
- 5. Parsing
- 6. Examples (Informative)
- 7. Identifiers for the Turtle Language
- 8. Conformance
- 9. Media Type and Content Encoding
- 10. Turtle compared
- A. Internet Media Type, File Extension and Macintosh File Type (Normative)
- B. Acknowledgements (Informative)
- C. Changes (Informative)
- D. References
1. Introduction
This document defines Turtle, the Terse RDF Triple Language, a concrete syntax for RDF as defined in theRDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax ([RDF-CONCEPTS]) W3C Recommendation. Turtle is an extension of N-Triples ([N-TRIPLES]) carefully taking the most useful and appropriate things added fromNotation 3 ([N3]) while staying within the RDF model.
ISSUE-4: A future version of this document is expected to define N-Triples.
The Turtle grammar for triples is a subset of the SPARQL Query Language for RDF [RDF-SPARQL-QUERY] grammar for TriplesBlock. The two grammars share production and terminal names where possible.
2. An Introduction to Turtle (Informative)
This section is informative. TheTurtle Syntax and Turtle Grammar sections formally define the language.
A Turtle document allows writing down an RDF graph in a compact textual form. It consists of a sequence of directives, triple-generating statements or blank lines. Comments may be given after a #
that is not part of another lexical token and continue to the end of the line.
Simple triples are a sequence of (subject, predicate, object) terms, separated by whitespace and terminated by '.' after each triple. This corresponds toN-Triples [N-TRIPLES].
ISSUE-4: A future version of this document is expected to define N-Triples.
There are three types of RDF Term:Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs for short),literals andblank nodes.
2.1 RDF Terms
IRIs are written enclosed in '<' and '>' and may be absolute RDF URI References or relative to the current base IRI (described below).
this is not a complete turtle document
http://example.org/path/#fragment <#fragment> <>
IRIs may also be abbreviated by using Turtle's @prefix
directive that allows declaring a short prefix name for a long prefix of repeated IRIs. This is useful for many RDF vocabularies that are all defined with a common namespace like IRI.
While @prefix
works somewhat like XML namespaces the restrictions from XML QNames do NOT apply. leg:3032571
is a perfectly fine prefixed name.
Once a prefix such as @prefix foo: <http://example.org/ns#>
is defined, any mention of a URI later in the document may use a prefixed name that starts foo:
to stand for the longer IRI. So for example, the prefixed name foo:bar
is a shorthand for the IRI http://example.org/ns#bar
.
this is a complete turtle document
@prefix foo: http://example.org/ns# . @prefix : http://other.example.org/ns# . foo:bar foo: : . :bar : foo:bar .
Literals are written either using double-quotes when they do not contain linebreaks like "simple literal"
or"""long literal"""
when they may contain linebreaks.
this is not a complete turtle document
"a string" """a string""" """a string with newlines """
Literals have either a language suffix or a datatype IRI but not both. Languages are indicated by appending the simple literal with @
and the language tag. Datatype IRIs similarly append ^^
followed by any legal IRI form (full or prefixed) as described above to give the datatype IRI. Literals may be written without either a language tag or a datatype IRI as a shortcut for a literal with the type xsd:string
.
this is not a complete turtle document
"That Seventies Show" "That Seventies Show"@en "Cette Série des Années Soixante-dix"@fr "Cette Série des Années Septante"@fr-be "mylexicaldata"^^http://example.org/my/datatype """10"""^^xsd:decimal
The "That Seventies Show"
above is equivalent to "That Seventies Show"^^xsd:string
.
ISSUE-12 The RDF Working Group is currently examining a simplification of RDF which considers plain literals with no language tag to be literals with a datatype xsd:string
.
Blank nodes are written as _:
BLANK_NODE_LABEL to provide a blank node either from the given BLANK_NODE_LABEL. A generated blank node may also be made with []
which is useful to provide the subject of RDF triples for each pair from the predicateObjectList or the root of the collection.
this is not a complete turtle document
_:me _:a1234
Literals , prefixed names and IRIs may also contain escapes to encode surrounding syntax, non-printable characters and to encode Unicode characters by codepoint number (although they may also be given directly, encoded as UTF-8). The character escapes are:
\t
(U+0009, tab)\n
(U+000A, linefeed)\r
(U+000D, carriage return)\"
(U+0022, double quote - only allowed inside strings)\>
(U+003E, greater than - only allowed inside IRI_REFs)\\
(U+005C, backslash)\u
HHHH or\U
HHHHHHHH for writing Unicode characters by hexadecimal codepoint where_H_ is a single hexadecimal digit.
See the String escapes section for full details.
ISSUE 67 The inclusion of escape sequences in prefixed names is undecided.
2.2 Abbreviating IRIs
The current base IRI may be altered in a Turtle document using the@base
directive. It allows further abbreviation of IRIs but is usually for simplifying the IRIs in the data, where the prefix directives are for vocabularies that describe the data.
Whenever this directive appears, it defines the base IRI for which all relative IRIs are resolved against. That includes IRIs, qualified names, prefix directives as well as later base directives.
this is a complete turtle document
In-scope base URI is the document URI at this point
. @base http://example.org/ns/ .
In-scope base URI is http://example.org/ns/ at this point
http://example.org/ns/b2 . @base .
In-scope base URI is http://example.org/ns/foo/ at this point
. @prefix : <bar#> . :a4 :b4 :c4 . @prefix : http://example.org/ns2# . :a5 :b5 :c5 .
The token a
is equivalent to the IRI<http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type>
this is a complete turtle document
@prefix doc: http://example.org/#ns .
http://example.org/path a doc:Document .
2.3 Abbreviating common datatypes
Decimal integers may be written directly and correspond to the XML Schema Datatypexsd:integer in both syntax and datatype IRI.
this is not a complete turtle document
-5 0 1 10 +1
some long form examples
"-5"^^xsd:integer "10"^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#integer
Decimal floating point double/fixed precision numbers may be written directly and correspond to the XML Schema Datatypexsd:double in both syntax and datatype IRI.
this is not a complete turtle document
1.3e2 10e0 -12.5e10
some long form examples
"1.3e2"^^xsd:double "-12.5e10"^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#double
Decimal floating point arbitrary precision numbers may be written directly and correspond to the XML Schema Datatypexsd:decimal. in both syntax and datatype IRI.
this is not a complete turtle document
0.0 1.0 1.234567890123456789 -5.0
some long form examples
"0.0"^^xsd:decimal "-5.0"^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
Boolean may be written directly as true
orfalse
and correspond to the the XML Schema Datatypexsd:boolean in both syntax and datatype IRI.
this is not a complete turtle document
true false
same in long form
"true"^^xsd:boolean "false"^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#boolean
2.4 Abbreviating groups of triples
The ,
symbol may be used to repeat the subject and predicate of triples that only differ in the object RDF term.
this is not a complete turtle document
:subject :predicate :object1 , :object2 .
creates two triples, the last triple is :subject :predicate :object2 .
The ;
symbol may be used to repeat the subject of triples that vary only in predicate and object RDF terms.
this is not a complete turtle document
:subject :predicate1 :obj1 ; :predicate2 :obj2 .
creates two triples, the last triple is :subject :predicate2 :obj2 .
2.5 Abbreviating RDF Collections
An RDF Collection may be abbreviated using a sequence of RDF Terms enclosed in ( )
brackets. Whitespace may be used to separate them, as usual. This format provides a blank node at the start of RDF Collection which may be used in further abbreviations.
this is a complete turtle document
@prefix : http://example.org/foo .
the object of this triple is the RDF collection blank node
:subject :predicate ( :a :b :c ) .
an empty collection value - rdf:nil
:subject :predicate2 () .
See section Collections for the details on the long form of the generated triples.
3. Syntax for IRIs, Literals and Blank Nodes
Turtle is a language for an RDF graph, a set of RDF triples. An RDF graph is composed of URI references (now interpreted as IRIs),literals and blank nodes.
The Turtle syntax for IRIs is identical to that of SPARQL Query, including the use of prefix
and base
directives, though these are spelled @prefix
and @base
respectively in Turtle. Per RFC3986 section 5.1.1 [RFC3986], the parsing begins with a context-defined In-Scope Base URI. Each @base
directive sets a new In-Scope Base URI, relative to the previous one. @prefix
directives map a local name to an IRI, also resolved against the current In-Scope Base URI. Subsequent @prefix
may re-map the same local name.
Turtle IRI syntax, including relative IRI resolution, is defined by SPARQL Query section 4.1.1 (noting the different spellings of the PREFIX
and BASE
keywords).
Example (test-30.ttl) with document base IRI http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/df1/tests/
In-scope base URI is http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/df1/tests/ at this point
. @base http://example.org/ns/ .
In-scope base URI is http://example.org/ns/ at this point
http://example.org/ns/b2 . @base .
In-scope base URI is http://example.org/ns/foo/ at this point
. @prefix : <bar#> . :a4 :b4 :c4 . @prefix : http://example.org/ns2# . :a5 :b5 :c5 .
encodes the following N-Triples (test-30.out):
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/df1/tests/a1 http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/df1/tests/b1 http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/df1/tests/c1 . http://example.org/ns/a2 http://example.org/ns/b2 http://example.org/ns/c2 . http://example.org/ns/foo/a3 http://example.org/ns/foo/b3 http://example.org/ns/foo/c3 . http://example.org/ns/foo/bar#a4 http://example.org/ns/foo/bar#b4 http://example.org/ns/foo/bar#c4 . http://example.org/ns2#a5 http://example.org/ns2#b5 http://example.org/ns2#c5 .
The Turtle syntax for literals and blank nodes are defined by SPARQL Query section 4.1.2 and SPARQL Query section 4.1.4 respectively.
4. Turtle Grammar
A Turtle document is a Unicode[UNICODE] character string encoded in UTF-8. Unicode codepoints only in the range U+0 to U+10FFFF inclusive are allowed.
4.1 White Space
White space (production ws) is used to separate two tokens which would otherwise be (mis-)recognized as one token.
White space is significant in tokensIRI_REF and string.
4.3 String Escapes
Turtle strings and IRIs can use \
-escape sequences to represent Unicode code points.
The following table describes all the escapes allowed inside a string or IRI_REF:
Escape | Unicode code point |
---|---|
'\u' hex hex hex hex | A Unicode codepoint in the range U+0 to U+FFFF inclusive corresponding to the encoded hexadecimal value. |
'\U' hex hex hex hex hex hex hex hex | A Unicode codepoint in the range U+10000 to U+10FFFF inclusive corresponding to the encoded hexadecimal value. |
'\t' | U+0009 |
'\n' | U+000A |
'\r' | U+000D |
'\"' (inside string) | U+0022 |
'\>' (inside IRI_REF only) | U+003E |
'\\' | U+005C |
where HEX is a hexadecimal character
HEX ::= [0-9] | [A-F] | [a-f]
4.4 Grammar
The EBNF used here is defined in XML 1.0 (Third Edition) [EBNF-NOTATION]. Production labels consisting of a number and a final 's', e.g. [60s], reference to the production with that number in the SPARQL Query Language for RDF grammar [RDF-SPARQL-QUERY].
There are known formating issues with the table form of the grammar. Please see <turtle.bnf> for exact grammar.
Turtle - Terse RDF Triple Language EBNF
[1] | turtleDoc | ::= | (statement)* | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[2] | statement | ::= | directive "."| triples "." | ||||
[3] | directive | ::= | prefixID| base | ||||
[4] | prefixID | ::= | PREFIX PNAME_NS IRI_REF | ||||
[5] | base | ::= | BASE IRI_REF | ||||
[6] | triples | ::= | subject predicateObjectList | ||||
[7] | predicateObjectList | ::= | verb objectList ( ";" verb objectList )* (";")? | ||||
[8] | objectList | ::= | object ( "," object )* | ||||
[9] | verb | ::= | predicate| "a" | ||||
[10] | subject | ::= | IRIref| blank | ||||
[11] | predicate | ::= | IRIref | ||||
[12] | object | ::= | IRIref| blank | literal | |||
[13] | literal | ::= | RDFLiteral| NumericLiteral | BooleanLiteral | |||
[14] | blank | ::= | BlankNode| blankNodePropertyList | collection | |||
[15] | blankNodePropertyList | ::= | "[" predicateObjectList "]" | ||||
[16] | collection | ::= | "(" object* ")" | ||||
[60s] | RDFLiteral | ::= | String ( LANGTAG | ( "^^" IRIref ) )? | ||||
[61s] | NumericLiteral | ::= | NumericLiteralUnsigned| NumericLiteralPositive | NumericLiteralNegative | |||
[62s] | NumericLiteralUnsigned | ::= | INTEGER| DECIMAL | DOUBLE | |||
[63s] | NumericLiteralPositive | ::= | INTEGER_POSITIVE| DECIMAL_POSITIVE | DOUBLE_POSITIVE | |||
[64s] | NumericLiteralNegative | ::= | INTEGER_NEGATIVE| DECIMAL_NEGATIVE | DOUBLE_NEGATIVE | |||
[65s] | BooleanLiteral | ::= | "true"| "false" | ||||
[66s] | String | ::= | STRING_LITERAL1| STRING_LITERAL2 | STRING_LITERAL_LONG1 | STRING_LITERAL_LONG2 | ||
[67s] | IRIref | ::= | IRI_REF| PrefixedName | ||||
[68s] | PrefixedName | ::= | PNAME_LN| PNAME_NS | ||||
[69s] | BlankNode | ::= | BLANK_NODE_LABEL| ANON | ||||
[17] | <BASE> | ::= | "@base" | ||||
[18] | <PREFIX> | ::= | "@prefix" | ||||
[70s] | <IRI_REF> | ::= | "<" ( [^<>\"{}|^`\\] - [#0000- ] | UCHAR )* ">" | |||
[71s] | <PNAME_NS> | ::= | (PN_PREFIX)? ":" | ||||
[72s] | <PNAME_LN> | ::= | PNAME_NS PN_LOCAL | ||||
[73s] | <BLANK_NODE_LABEL> | ::= | "_:" PN_LOCAL | ||||
[74s] | <VAR1> | ::= | "?" VARNAME | ||||
[75s] | <VAR2> | ::= | "$" VARNAME | ||||
[76s] | <LANGTAG> | ::= | BASE| PREFIX | "@" [a-zA-Z]+ ( "-" [a-zA-Z0-9]+ )* | |||
[77s] | <INTEGER> | ::= | [0-9]+ | ||||
[78s] | <DECIMAL> | ::= | [0-9]+ "." [0-9]*| "." [0-9]+ | ||||
[79s] | <DOUBLE> | ::= | [0-9]+ "." [0-9]* EXPONENT| "." ( [0-9] )+ EXPONENT | ( [0-9] )+ EXPONENT | |||
[80s] | <INTEGER_POSITIVE> | ::= | "+" INTEGER | ||||
[81s] | <DECIMAL_POSITIVE> | ::= | "+" DECIMAL | ||||
[82s] | <DOUBLE_POSITIVE> | ::= | "+" DOUBLE | ||||
[83s] | <INTEGER_NEGATIVE> | ::= | "-" INTEGER | ||||
[84s] | <DECIMAL_NEGATIVE> | ::= | "-" DECIMAL | ||||
[85s] | <DOUBLE_NEGATIVE> | ::= | "-" DOUBLE | ||||
[86s] | <EXPONENT> | ::= | [eE] [+-]? [0-9]+ | ||||
[87s] | <STRING_LITERAL1> | ::= | "'" ( ( [^'\\\n\r] ) | ECHAR | UCHAR )* "'" | |||
[88s] | <STRING_LITERAL2> | ::= | '"' ( ( [^\"\\\n\r] ) | ECHAR | UCHAR )* '"' | |||
[89s] | <STRING_LITERAL_LONG1> | ::= | "'''" ( ( "'" | "''" )? ( [^'\\] | ECHAR | UCHAR ) )* "'''" | ||
[90s] | <STRING_LITERAL_LONG2> | ::= | '"""' ( ( '"' | '""' )? ( [^\"\\] | ECHAR | UCHAR ) )* '"""' | ||
[19] | <UCHAR> | ::= | ( "\\u" [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] )| ( "\\U" [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] [0-9a-fA-F] ) | ||||
[91s] | <ECHAR> | ::= | "\\" [tbnrf\\\"'] | ||||
[92s] | <NIL> | ::= | "(" (WS)* ")" | ||||
[93s] | <WS> | ::= | " "| "\t" | "\r" | "\n" | ||
[94s] | <ANON> | ::= | "[" (WS)* "]" | ||||
[95s] | <PN_CHARS_BASE> | ::= | [A-Z]| [a-z] | [#00C0-#00D6] | [#00D8-#00F6] | [#00F8-#02FF] | [#0370-#037D] |
[96s] | <PN_CHARS_U> | ::= | PN_CHARS_BASE| "_" | ||||
[97s] | <VARNAME> | ::= | ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] ) ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] | #00B7 | [#0300-#036F] | [#203F-#2040] )* |
[98s] | <PN_CHARS> | ::= | PN_CHARS_U| "-" | [0-9] | #00B7 | [#0300-#036F] | [#203F-#2040] |
[99s] | <PN_PREFIX> | ::= | PN_CHARS_BASE ( ( PN_CHARS | "." )* PN_CHARS )? | ||||
[100s] | <PN_LOCAL> | ::= | ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] ) ( ( PN_CHARS | "." )* PN_CHARS )? | |||
[-] | PASSED TOKENS | ::= | [ \t\r\n]+| "#" [^\r\n]* |
5. Parsing
The RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax ([RDF-CONCEPTS]) specification defines three types of RDF Term:RDF URI References (here called IRIs),literals andblank nodes. Literals are composed of a lexical form and an optional language tag or datatype IRI. An extra type, prefix
, is used during parsing to map string identifiers to namespace IRIs. This section maps a string conforming to the grammar in section 4.4 to a set of triples by mapping strings matching productions and lexical tokens to RDF terms or their components (e.g. language tags, lexical forms of literals). Some productions change the parser state (base or prefix declarations).
5.1 Parser State
Parsing Turtle requires a state of four items:
- IRI
baseURI
— When the base production is reached, the second rule argument,IRI_REF
, is the base URI used for relative IRI resolution (test: base1 base2). - Map[prefix -> IRI]
namespaces
— The second and third rule arguments (PNAME_NS
andIRI_REF
) in the prefixID production assign a namespace name (IRI_REF
) for the prefix (PNAME_NS
). Outside of aprefixID
production, anyPNAME_NS
is substituted with the namespace (test: prefix1 escapedNamespace1). Note that the prefix may be an empty string, per thePNAME_NS,
production:(PN_PREFIX)? ":"
(test: default1). - Map[string -> blank node]
bnodeLabels
— A mapping from string to blank node label. - RDF_Term
curSubject
— ThecurSubject
is bound to the[subject](#prod-turtle2-subject)
production. - RDF_Term
curPredicate
— ThecurPredicate
is bound to the[verb](#prod-turtle2-verb)
production. If token matched was "a
",curPredicate
is bound to the IRIhttp://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type
(test: type).
5.2 RDF Term Constructors
This table maps productions and lexical tokens to RDF terms
or components of RDF terms
listed in section 5:
production | type | procedure |
---|---|---|
IRI_REF | IRI | The characters between "<" and ">" are unescaped¹ to form the unicode string of the IRI. Relative IRI resolution is performed per SPARQL Query section 4.1.1. |
PNAME_NS | prefix | The potentially empty unicode string matching the first argument of the rule is a key into the namespaces map. |
PNAME_LN | IRI | A prefix is identified by the first argument, PNAME_NS. The namespaces map has a corresponding namespace. The unicode string of the IRI is formed by concatenating this namespace and the second argument, PN_LOCAL. Relative IRI resolution is performed per SPARQL Query section 4.1.1. |
STRING_LITERAL1 | lexical form | The characters between the outermost "'"s are unescaped¹ to form the unicode string of a lexical form. |
STRING_LITERAL2 | lexical form | The characters between the outermost '"'s are unescaped¹ to form the unicode string of a lexical form. |
STRING_LITERAL_LONG1 | lexical form | The characters between the outermost "'''"s are unescaped¹ to form the unicode string of a lexical form. |
STRING_LITERAL_LONG2 | lexical form | The characters between the outermost '"""'s are unescaped¹ to form the unicode string of a lexical form. |
LANGTAG | language tag | The characters following the "@" form the unicode string of the language tag. |
RDFLiteral | literal | The literal has a lexical form of the first rule argument (String) and either a language tag of LANGTAG or a datatype IRI of IRIref, depending on which rule matched the input. |
INTEGER | literal | The literal has a lexical form of the input string, and a datatype of xsd:integer. |
DECIMAL | literal | The literal has a lexical form of the input string, and a datatype of xsd:decimal. |
DOUBLE | literal | The literal has a lexical form of the input string, and a datatype of xsd:double. |
BooleanLiteral | literal | The literal has a lexical form of the "true" or "false", depending on which matched the input, and a datatype of xsd:boolean. |
BLANK_NODE_LABEL | blank node | The string matching the second argument, PN_LOCAL, is a key in bnodeLabels. If there is no corresponding blank node in the map, one is allocated. |
ANON | blank node | A blank node is generated. |
blankNodePropertyList | blank node | A blank node is generated. Note the rules for blankNodePropertyList in the next section. |
collection | blank node | A blank node is generated. Note the rules for collection in the next section. |
¹ Section 3.3 defines an mapping from escaped unicode strings
to unicode strings
. The following lexical tokens are unescaped to produce unicode strings
: IRI_REF, STRING_LITERAL1, STRING_LITERAL2, STRING_LITERAL_LONG1 and STRING_LITERAL_LONG2 .
5.3 RDF Triples Constructors
A Turtle document defines an RDF graph composed of set of RDF triples. Each object N
in the document produces an RDF triple: curSubject
curPredicate
N
.
Beginning the [blankNodePropertyList](#prod-turtle2-blankNodePropertyList)
production records the curSubject
and curPredicate
, and sets curSubject
to a novel blank node
B
. Finishing the [blankNodePropertyList](#prod-turtle2-blankNodePropertyList)
production restores curSubject
and curPredicate
. The node produced by matching [blankNodePropertyList](#prod-turtle2-blankNodePropertyList)
is the blank node B
.
Beginning the [collection](#prod-turtle2-collection)
production records the curSubject
and curPredicate
, sets curSubject
to a novel blank node
Bhead
and sets curSubject
and curPredicate
to Bhead
and rdf:first
respectively. Each object O
in [collection](#prod-turtle2-collection)
allocates a novel blank node
Bn
, creates an additional triple curSubject rdf:rest Bn
. and sets curSubject
to Bn
. Finishing the [collection](#prod-turtle2-collection)
production creates an additional triple curSubject rdf:rest rdf:nil
. and restores curSubject
and curPredicate
The node produced by matching [collection](#prod-turtle2-collection)
is the blank node Bhead
.
5.4 Parsing Example (Informative)
This section is non-normative.
The following informative example shows the semantic actions performed when parsing this Turtle document with an LALR(1) parser:
@prefix ericFoaf: http://www.w3.org/People/Eric/ericP-foaf.rdf# . @prefix : http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ . ericFoaf:ericP :givenName "Eric" ; :knows http://norman.walsh.name/knows/who/dan-brickley , [ :mbox mailto:timbl@w3.org ] , http://getopenid.com/amyvdh .
- Map the prefix
ericFoaf
to the IRIhttp://www.w3.org/People/Eric/ericP-foaf.rdf#
. - Map the empty prefix to the IRI
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
. - Assign
curSubject
the IRIhttp://www.w3.org/People/Eric/ericP-foaf.rdf#ericP
. - Assign
curPredicate
the IRIhttp://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/givenName
. - Emit an RDF triple:
<...rdf#ericP>
<.../givenName>
"Eric"
. - Assign
curPredicate
the IRIhttp://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/knows
. - Emit an RDF triple:
<...rdf#ericP>
<.../knows>
<...who/dan-brickley>
. - Emit an RDF triple:
<...rdf#ericP>
<.../knows>
_:1
. - Save
curSubject
and reassign to the blank node_:1
. - Save
curPredicate
. - Assign
curPredicate
the IRIhttp://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/mbox
. - Emit an RDF triple:
_:1
<.../mbox>
<mailto:timbl@w3.org>
. - Restore
curSubject
andcurPredicate
to their saved values (<...rdf#ericP>
,<.../knows>
). - Emit an RDF triple:
<...rdf#ericP>
<.../knows>
<http://getopenid.com/amyvdh>
.
6. Examples (Informative)
This section is non-normative.
This example is a Turtle translation of example 7 in theRDF/XML Syntax specification (example1.ttl):
@prefix rdf: http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# . @prefix dc: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/ . @prefix ex: http://example.org/stuff/1.0/ .
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar dc:title "RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)" ; ex:editor [ ex:fullname "Dave Beckett"; ex:homePage http://purl.org/net/dajobe/ ] .
An example of an RDF collection of two literals.
@prefix : http://example.org/stuff/1.0/ . :a :b ( "apple" "banana" ) .
which is short for (example2.ttl):
@prefix : http://example.org/stuff/1.0/ . @prefix rdf: http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# . :a :b [ rdf:first "apple"; rdf:rest [ rdf:first "banana"; rdf:rest rdf:nil ] ] .
An example of two identical triples containing literal objects containing newlines, written in plain and long literal forms. Assumes that line feeds in this document are #xA. (example3.ttl):
@prefix : http://example.org/stuff/1.0/ .
:a :b "The first line\nThe second line\n more" .
:a :b """The first line The second line more""" .
As indicated by the grammar, a collection can be either a subject or an object. This subject or object will be the novel blank node for the first object, if the collection has one or more objects, or rdf:nil
if the collection is empty.
For example,
(1 2.0 3E1) :p "w" .
is syntactic sugar for (noting that the blank nodes b0
, b1
and b2
do not occur anywhere else in the RDF graph):
_:b0 rdf:first 1 ;
rdf:rest _:b1 .
_:b1 rdf:first 2.0 ;
rdf:rest _:b2 .
_:b2 rdf:first 3E1 ;
rdf:rest rdf:nil .
_:b0 :p "w" .
RDF collections can be nested and can involve other syntactic forms:
(1 [:p :q] ( 2 ) ) .
is syntactic sugar for:
_:b0 rdf:first 1 ;
rdf:rest _:b1 .
_:b1 rdf:first _:b2 .
_:b2 :p :q .
_:b1 rdf:rest _:b3 .
_:b3 rdf:first _:b4 .
_:b4 rdf:first 2 ;
rdf:rest rdf:nil .
_:b3 rdf:rest rdf:nil .
7. Identifiers for the Turtle Language
The IRI that identifies the Turtle language is:http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/Turtle
The XML (Namespace name, Local name) pair that identifies the Turtle language is:
Namespace: http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/Turtle
Local name: turtle
The suggested namespace prefix is ttl
(informative) which would make this ttl:turtle
as an XML QName.
Previous versions of the Turtle specified http://www.w3.org/2008/turtle#turtle
as the IRI for the Turtle language. This change aligns Turtle with identifiers for RDF/XML, N3, POWDER, etc
8. Conformance
Systems conforming to Turtle must pass all the following test cases:
- The N-Triples tests in theRDF Test Cases W3C Recommendation.
- The Turtle Test Suite
Passing these tests means:- All the
test-n.ttl
tests must generate equivalent RDF triples to those given in the correspondingtest-n.out
N-Triples file. - All the
bad-n.ttl
tests must not generate RDF triples.
- All the
9. Media Type and Content Encoding
The media type of Turtle is text/turtle
. The content encoding of Turtle content is always UTF-8. Charset parameters on the mime type are required until such time as the text/
media type tree permits UTF-8 to be sent without a charset parameter. See B. Internet Media Type, File Extension and Macintosh File Type for the media type registration form.
10. Turtle compared
Turtle is related to a number of other languages.
10.1 Turtle compared to N-Triples (Informative)
This section is non-normative.
ISSUE-4: A future version of this document is expected to define N-Triples. By default, the RDF WG will specify N-Triples to allow UTF-8 characters in IRIs, literals and blank node identifiers. Readers with an opinion about whether or not N-Triples should be ASCII-only may wish to comment.
All N-Triples files are vaild Turtle documents. Turtle adds the following syntax to N-Triples:
- Whitespace restrictions removed
- Text content-encoding changed from ASCII to UTF-8
- Three additional string syntaxes: STRING_LITERAL2, STRING_LITERAL_LONG1, STRING_LITERAL_LONG2
[@base](#term-turtle2-BASE)
directive for setting a base IRI[@prefix](#term-turtle2-PREFIX)
directive for assigning namespace prefixes- Prefixed names
- Object lists separated by
,
- Predicate object lists separated by
;
- Unlabled blank nodes indicated by
[]
rdf:type
shorthanda
- RDF collection constructor bound by
()
s - Decimal integer literals of type
xsd:integer
- Decimal double literals of type
xsd:double
- Decimal arbitrary length literals of type
xsd:decimal
- Boolean literals of type
xsd:boolean
10.2 Turtle compared to Notation 3 (Informative)
This section is non-normative.
Turtle is similar to and inspired by the more powerful Notation 3 (N3). Please see the most recent Notation3 specification for comparison with Turtle.
10.3 Turtle compared to RDF/XML (Informative)
This section is non-normative.
RDF/XML ([RDF-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR]) has certain restrictions imposed by XML and the use of XML Namespaces that prevent it encoding all RDF graphs (some predicate URIs are forbidden and XML 1.0 forbids encoding some Unicode codepoints). These restrictions do not apply to Turtle.
10.4 Turtle compared to SPARQL (Informative)
This section is non-normative.
The SPARQL Query Language for RDF (SPARQL) [RDF-SPARQL-QUERY] uses a Turtle style syntax for its TriplesBlock production. This production differs from the Turtle language in that:
- SPARQL permits RDF Literals as the subject of RDF triples (per Last Call draft)
- SPARQL permits variables (
?
name or$
name) in any part of the triple of the form - Turtle allows prefix and base declarations anywhere outside of a triple. In SPARQL, they are only allowed in the Prologue (at the start of the SPARQL query).
For further information see theSyntax for IRIs and SPARQL Grammar sections of the SPARQL query document [RDF-SPARQL-QUERY].
C. Changes (Informative)
Changes since the last publication of this documentW3C Turtle Submission 2008-01-14 . See thePrevious changelog for further information
- Adopted three additional string syntaxes from SPARQL: STRING_LITERAL2, STRING_LITERAL_LONG1, STRING_LITERAL_LONG2
- Adopted case-independent constants for XSD booleans
true
andfalse
. - Adopted SPARQL's syntax for prefixed names (see editor's draft):
- '.'s in names in all positions of a local name apart from the first or last, e.g.
ex:first.name
. - digits in the first character of the PN_LOCAL lexical token, e.g.
ex:7tm
.
- '.'s in names in all positions of a local name apart from the first or last, e.g.
- Made syntax section normative.
- adopted SPARQL's IRI resolution and prefix substitution text.
- explicitly allowed re-use of the same prefix.
- Added parsing rules.