In this post I outline how a graphical representation of an application profile can be converted to SHACL that can be used for data validation.
Tag Archives: SHACL
DCAT AP DC TAP: a grown up example of TAP to SHACL
I’ve described a couple of short “toy” examples as proof of concept of turning a Dublin Core Application Profile (DC TAP) into SHACL in order to validate instance data: the SHACL Person Example and a Simple Book Example; now it is time to see how the approach fares against a real world example. I chose the EU joinup Data Catalog Application Profile (DCAT AP) because Karen Coyle had an interest in DCAT, it is well documented (pdf) with a github repo that has SHACL files, there is a Interoperability Test Bed validator for it (albeit a version late) and I found a few test instances with known errors (again a little dated). I also found the acronym soup of DCAT AP DC TAP irresistable.
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TAP to SHACL example
Last week I posted Application Profile to Validation with TAP to SHACL about converting a DCMI Tabular Application Profile (DC TAP) to SHACL in order to validate instance data. I ended by saying that I needed more examples in order to test that it worked: that is, not only check that the SHACL is valid, but also that validates / raises errors as expected when used with instance data.
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Application Profile to Validation with TAP to SHACL
Over the past couple of years or so I have been part of the Dublin Core Application Profile Interest Group creating the DC Tabular Application Profile (DC-TAP) specification. I described DC-TAP in a post about a year ago as a “human-friendly approach that also lends itself to machine processing”, in this post I’ll explore a little about how it lends itself to machine processing.
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SHACL, when two wrongs make a right
I have been working with SHACL for a few months in connexion with validating RDF instance data against the requirements of application profiles. There’s a great validation tool created as part of the JoinUp Interoperability Test Bed that lets you upload your SHACL rules and a data instance and tests the latter against the former. But be aware: some errors can lead to the instance data successfully passing the tests; this isn’t an error with the tool, just a case of blind logic: the program doing what you tell it to regardless of whether that’s what you want it to do.
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