SQUALL: a High-Level Language for Querying and Updating the Semantic Web
Sébastien Ferré · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2011
Languages play a central role in the Semantic Web. An important aspect regarding their design is syntax as it plays a crucial role in the wide acceptance of the Semantic Web approach. Like for programming languages, an evolution can be observed from low-level to high-level designs. High-level languages not only allow more people to contribute by abstracting from the details, but also makes experienced people more productive, and makes the produced documents easier to share and maintain. We introduce SQUALL, a high-level language for querying and updating semantic data. It has a strong adequacy with RDF, an expressiveness very similar to SPARQL 1.1, and a controlled natural language syntax that completely abstracts from low-level notions such as bindings and relational algebra. We first give an informal presentation of SQUALL through examples, comparing it with SPARQL. We then formally define the syntax and semantics of SQUALL as a Montague grammar, and its translation to SPARQL.