Expressions

Reference: 17. Expressions and Testing Values

SPARQL supports expressions, which can be used to compute values and filter query results. In particular, expressions can be used in the following circumstances:

• As part of a :filter clause.
• As part of a :bind clause, in an [expr var] form.
• As part of a :group-by clause, either as a freestanding expression or in an [expr var] form.
• To aggregate or compute values in a :select, :order-by or :having clause.

In Flint, an expression is either a list of the form (op expr...), similar to Clojure functions, or a terminal, which can be a variable, an IRI or a literal.

Other than certain exceptions, like exists and not-exists, non-terminal expressions only accept other expressions as arguments.

The following is an example of an expression in Flint:

(if (< ?x ?y) (str ?x) (* 2 (+ 3 4)))

which is translated into SPARQL as:

IF((?x < ?y), STR(?x), (2 * (3 + 4)))

NOTE: Due to the complexity of SPARQL type semantics, Flint does not make any attempt to typecheck or validate expression arguments or return values.

Boolean and Arithmetic Expressions

SPARQL supports boolean and arithmetic operations, with accept one or more expression arguments and return boolean or numeric values. Like all expressions, boolean and arithmetic operations are written in Clojure's prefix order in Flint, but are translated to SPARQL's infix order. (The exceptions are the unary not operator, as well as SPARQL's unary + and - that are not supported in Flint.)

The in and not-in operations are special boolean operations that are equivalent to (or (= expr expr1) (= expr expr2) ...) and (and (not= expr expr1) (not= expr expr2) ...), respectively.

Flint	SPARQL Form	Arglist	Reference
not	!(expr)	[expr]
or	(expr || expr)	[expr & exprs]	17.4.1.5
and	(expr && expr)	[expr & exprs]	17.4.1.6
=	(expr = expr)	[expr expr]	17.4.1.7
not=	(expr != expr)	[expr expr]
<	(expr < expr)	[expr expr]
>	(expr > expr)	[expr expr]
<=	(expr <= expr)	[expr expr]
>=	(expr >= expr)	[expr expr]
+	(expr + expr + ...)	[expr & exprs]
-	(expr - expr - ...)	[expr & exprs]
*	(expr * expr * ...)	[expr & exprs]
/	(expr / expr / ...)	[expr & exprs]
in	(expr IN (expr, ...))	[expr & exprs]	17.4.1.9
not-in	(expr NOT IN (expr, ...))	[expr & exprs]	17.4.1.10

Built-in Function Expressions

SPARQL accepts a number of built-in functions, which are translated from Flint's (fname expr expr ...) form to SPARQL's FNAME(expr, expr, ...) form. This section contains a list of all non-aggregate built-in expressions, grouped together by argument and return types.

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
if	IF	[expr expr expr]	17.4.1.2
coalesce	COALESCE	[& expr]	17.4.1.3
datatype	DATATYPE	[expr]	17.4.2.7

Graph Patterns

Unlike most expressions, exists and not-exists only accept graph patterns as arguments. The following example:

[:filter (exists [[?person :foaf/name ?name]])]

becomes:

FILTER EXISTS {
    ?person foaf:name ?name .
}

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
exists	EXISTS	[graph-pattern]	17.4.1.4
not-exists	NOT EXISTS	[graph-pattern]	17.4.1.4

URIs and IRIs

Flint	SPARQL name	Arglist	Reference
iri	IRI	[expr]	17.4.2.8
uri	URI	[expr]	17.4.2.8

Blank Nodes

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
bnode	BNODE	[] or [expr]	17.4.2.9

UUIDs

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
uuid	UUID	[]	17.4.2.12
struuid	STRUUID	[]	17.4.2.13

Predicates

String-specific predicates are listed under Strings and Language Maps. Note that bound takes a variable instead of another expression as its argument.

Flint	SPARQL name	Arglist	Reference
bound	BOUND	[var]	17.4.1.1
sameterm	SAMETERM	[expr expr]	17.4.1.8
iri?	isIRI	[expr]	17.4.2.1
uri?	isURI	[expr]	17.4.2.1
blank?	isBLANK	[expr]	17.4.2.2
literal?	isLITERAL	[expr]	17.4.2.3
numeric?	isNUMERIC	[expr]	17.4.2.4

Strings and Language Maps

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
str	STR	[expr]	17.4.2.5
lang	LANG	[expr]	17.4.2.6
strdt	STRDT	[expr expr]	17.4.2.10
strlang	STRLANG	[expr expr]	17.4.2.11
strlen	STRLEN	[expr]	17.4.3.2
substr	SUBSTR	[expr expr] or [expr expr expr]	17.4.3.3
ucase	UCASE	[expr]	17.4.3.4
lcase	LCASE	[expr]	17.4.3.5
strstarts	STRSTARTS	[expr expr]	17.4.3.6
strends	STRENDS	[expr expr]	17.4.3.7
contains	CONTAINS	[expr expr]	17.4.3.8
strbefore	STRBEFORE	[expr expr]	17.4.3.9
strafter	STRAFTER	[expr expr]	17.4.3.10
encode-for-uri	ENCODE_FOR_URI	[expr]	17.4.3.11
concat	CONCAT	[& exprs]	17.4.3.12
lang-matches	LANGMATCHES	[expr expr]	17.4.3.13
regex	REGEX	[expr expr] or [expr expr expr]	17.4.3.14
replace	REPLACE	[expr expr expr] or [expr expr expr expr]	17.4.3.15

Numerics

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
abs	ABS	[expr]	17.4.4.1
round	ROUND	[expr]	17.4.4.2
ceil	CEIL	[expr]	17.4.4.3
floor	FLOOR	[expr]	17.4.4.4
rand	RAND	[]	17.4.4.5

Dates and Times

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
now	NOW	[]	17.4.5.1
year	YEAR	[expr]	17.4.5.2
month	MONTH	[expr]	17.4.5.3
day	DAY	[expr]	17.4.5.4
hours	HOURS	[expr]	17.4.5.5
minutes	MINUTES	[expr]	17.4.5.6
seconds	SECONDS	[expr]	17.4.5.7
timezone	TIMEZONE	[expr]	17.4.5.8
tz	TZ	[expr]	17.4.5.9

Hash Functions

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist	Reference
md5	MD5	[expr]	17.4.6.1
sha1	SHA1	[expr]	17.4.6.2
sha256	SHA256	[expr]	17.4.6.3
sha384	SHA384	[expr]	17.4.6.4
sha512	SHA512	[expr]	17.4.6.5

Aggregate Expressions

Aggregates are special expressions that can only be used in SELECT (and its DISTINCT and REDUCED variants), ORDER BY and HAVING clauses.

Flint	SPARQL	Arglist
sum	SUM	[expr & {:keys [distinct?]}]
min	MIN	[expr & {:keys [distinct?]}]
max	MAX	[expr & {:keys [distinct?]}]
avg	AVG	[expr & {:keys [distinct?]}]
sample	SAMPLE	[expr & {:keys [distinct?]}]
count	COUNT	[expr-or-wildcard & {:keys [distinct?]}]
group-concat	GROUP_CONCAT	[expr & {:keys [distinct? separator]}]

The count aggregate can accept either an expression or a wildcard, e.g. both (count ?x) and (count *) are valid.

Unlike other expressions, aggregates in Flint support keyword arguments. Every aggregate function supports the :distinct? keyword arg, which accepts a boolean value. If :distinct? is true, then DISTINCT is added to the arg list in SPARQL. The example,

(sum ?x :distinct? true)

becomes

SUM(DISTINCT ?x)

group-concat also accepts the :separator keyword arg whose value is a separator string. Both :distinct? and :separator can be supported in the same expression, as so:

(group-concat ?y :distinct? true :separator ";")

which becomes

GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ?y; SEPARATOR = ";")

NOTE: Using aggregates in an invalid clause, e.g. a FILTER clause, will cause a spec error.

NOTE: Using aggregates in a SELECT query, or including a GROUP BY in the query, introduces aggregate restrictions on the SELECT clause. See the SPARQL Queries page for more details.

Custom Functions

Users can write their own custom functions, which consist of using an IRI or prefixed IRI instead of a symbol. The example:

[:filter (:func/isEven ?x)]

becomes

FILTER func:isEven(?x)

NOTE: Flint makes no attempt to validate that custom function IRIs resolve to valid resources, nor does it to attempt to validate input or output.

In :select, :order-by and :having clauses, custom aggregates are allowed, and any custom function can accept the :distinct? keyword arg. During aggregate validation, all custom functions in these clauses are treated as aggregates.

Variable Binding

Variables can be bound to the result of expressions in :bind, :select, and :group-by clauses. In Flint, they are written in as the vector [expr var], such as in this example:

[(+ 2 2) ?four]

which then becomes:

(2 + 2) AS ?four

NOTE: In a :select or :bind clause, the variable being bound to cannot already be in-scope. In a :select clause, the var cannot be already defined in the :where clause, nor be previously projected in that same clause. In the :bind case, it cannot be already defined in previously-listed graph patterns.