SHACL

SHACL
Shapes Constraint Language
AbbreviationSHACL
StatusPublished, W3C Recommendation [1]
Year started2015 (2015)[2]
First publishedOctober 8, 2015; 9 years ago (2015-10-08)[2]
OrganizationW3C
CommitteeRDF Data Shapes Working Group
Editors
  • Holger Knublauch
  • Dimitris Kontokostas
[1]
Base standards
Related standards
DomainSemantic Web
Websitewww.w3.org/TR/shacl/

Shapes Constraint Language[1] (SHACL) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard language for describing Resource Description Framework (RDF) graphs. SHACL has been designed to enhance the semantic and technical interoperability layers of ontologies expressed as RDF graphs.[3]

SHACL models are defined in terms of constraints on the content, structure and meaning of a graph. SHACL is a highly expressive language. Among others, it includes features to express conditions that constrain the number of values that a property may have, the type of such values, numeric ranges, string matching patterns, and logical combinations of such constraints. SHACL also includes an extension mechanism to express more complex conditions in languages such as SPARQL and JavaScript. SHACL Rules add inferencing capabilities to SHACL, allowing users to define what new statements can be inferred from existing (asserted) statements.

  1. ^ a b c Knublauch, Holger; Kontokostas, Dimitris, eds. (2017-07-20). "Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL)". W3C. RDF Data Shapes Working Group. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  2. ^ a b "Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) Publication History - W3C". W3C. 20 July 2017. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  3. ^ "CAMSS Assessment of SHACL by the European Commission".