External Data Sources - further thougths/real users need - LDClients

[Fabian Cretton <Fa...@hevs.ch>]

Hi,
 
In a previous thread, I thought about managing External Data Sources as the LDCache functionality.
 
Now I am thinking it can be seen more like an "enhanced" import functionality.
 
As we can see from this mailing list, this functionality we foresee as important/mandatory for applications based on linked data is already asked by a user here: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/marmotta-users/201409.mbox/browser
 
My question here is to know if it would be 'odd' to base the 'enhanced' import functionality by using LDClients ?
It seems to me that the current import don't rely on LDClients, but solely on "RDFImporterImpl", hence my question.
 
Thank you
Fabian
 
 
 

Re: External Data Sources - further thougths/real users need - LDClients

[Jakob Frank <ja...@apache.org>]

Hi Fabian,

On 10 September 2014 08:57, Fabian Cretton <Fa...@hevs.ch> wrote:
> My question here is to know if it would be 'odd' to base the 'enhanced'
> import functionality by using LDClients ?
> It seems to me that the current import don't rely on LDClients, but solely
> on "RDFImporterImpl", hence my question.
there is an important conceptual difference between the Import and LDClient:

Both are adding triples (or quadruples) to the RDF store, but:
* Import is dataset based, i.e. you can import any combination of
resources in one file.
* LDClient is resouces based, i.e. you import data starting from a
known resource (URI) which has to be resolvable via http(s)

Most usecases of one can be implemented using the other, the overlap
is quite big: You can convert/enrich/ground the data before adding it
to RDF store, create modules for custom formats, etc...
If you have complex constructs with anonymous nodes (BNodes),
importing is the easier way.

As I said, the distinction is primarily conceptual, and from what I
understood of your use-case the "Import" would be the way to go.

Best,
Jakob