ShEx

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Shape Expressions (ShEx) ^[2] is a data modelling language for validating and describing a Resource Description Framework (RDF).

ShEx - Shape Expressions

Paradigm	Data Validation
Designed by	Eric Prud'hommeaux, Iovka Boneva, Jose Emilio Labra Gayo, Gregg Kellogg, Shape Expressions W3C Community Group
Stable release	2.1 / November 21, 2018; 5 years ago (2018-11-21)
Scope	Semantic Web
Implementation language	JavaScript, Scala
Filename extensions	shex, sx
Website	www.w3.org/community/shex/
Major implementations
shex.js,^[1] Shaclex^[1]
Influenced by
Turtle, SPARQL, RelaxNG
Influenced
SHACL

It was proposed at the 2012 RDF Validation Workshop^[3] as a high-level, concise language for RDF validation.

The shapes can be defined in a human-friendly compact syntax called ShExC or using any RDF serialization formats like JSON-LD or Turtle.

ShEx expressions can be used both to describe RDF and to automatically check the conformance of RDF data. The syntax of ShEx is similar to Turtle and SPARQL while the semantics is inspired by regular expression languages like RelaxNG.

Example

PREFIX : <http://example.org/> PREFIX schema: <http://schema.org/> PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> :Person { schema:name xsd:string ; schema:knows @:Person * ; } 

The previous example declares that nodes conforming to shape Person must have one property schema:name with a string value and zero or more properties schema:knows whose values must conform with shape Person.

Implementations

Project	Programming language	Version	Latest release	Compatible ShEx version	Features
					value checking	cardinality	manifest shapemap	imports	external shapes	annotations	semantic actions
ShEx.ex	Elixir	v0.1.4	2020-10-13	?	?	?	?	no	no	no	no
Ruby ShEx	Ruby	0.7.1	2022-01-29	2.0	?	?	?	?	?	?	yes
shexjava	Java	none	none	2.0	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
PyShEx	Python	v0.8.1	2022-04-14	2.0	yes	yes	no	no	?	?	?
entityshape	Python	0.0.2	2023-06-24	?	yes	yes	no	no	no	no	no
shaclex	Scala	0.1.70	2020-11-02	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
shex.js	JavaScript	v1.0.0-alpha.26	2023-04-25	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Online playgrounds and demos

• ShExSimple: Online demo based on shex.js
• rdfshape: online demo based on shaclex 2018-11-19 at the Wayback Machine

References

1. Labra Gayo, Jose Emilio; Prud'hommeaux, Eric; Boneva, Iovka; Kontokostas, Dimitris (2018). Validating RDF Data. Morgan & Claypool. p. 328. ISBN 9781681731650.
2. "Shape Expressions Language 2.0". 27 March 2017.
3. "RDF Validation Workshop: Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data".

Further reading

Specification

• Prud'hommeaux, Eric; Boneva, Iovka; Labra Gayo, Jose Emilio; Kellogg, Gregg, eds. (2018). Shape Expressions Language Specification. W3C Draft Community Group Report.
• Labra Gayo, Jose Emilio; Prud'hommeaux, Eric; Boneva, Iovka; Kontokostas, Dimitris (2018). Validating RDF Data. Morgan & Claypool.

Other

• Thornton, Katherine; Solbrig, Harold; Stupp, Gregory S.; Labra Gayo, Jose Emilio; Mietchen, Daniel; Prud'hommeaux, Eric; Waagmeester, Andra (2018-04-07). "Using Shape Expressions (Shex) To Share Rdf Data Models And To Guide Curation With Rigorous Validation". doi:10.5281/ZENODO.1214521. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Katherine, Thornton. "Using ShEx to Investigate Data about Software and File Formats in Wikidata | Software Preservation Network (SPN)". www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org. Retrieved 2023-06-24.

See also

• SHACL
• Wikidata
• XML schemas