| s | p_blank | o_blank |
|---|---|---|
| /id/statistical-geography/S01000859 | http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type | geosparql: Geometry |
| /id/statistical-geography/S01000859 | geosparql: asWKT | POLYGON ((-3.810031440151754 56.126303006146415, -3.810639727381889 56.123840858853484, -3.809771312767196 56.123754201346586, -3.809419674187778 56.12321173565314, -3.809961638756513 56.12310494525887, -3.809673202448988 56.122444194211695, -3.811612005882839 56.12162861070556, -3.813528124955164 56.12231575196763, -3.816065630503402 56.12256601894472, -3.816392167281716 56.121773558287146, -3.817960839886712 56.12113628400947, -3.820816188006848 56.12266680202562, -3.821169175610855 56.12366805272918, -3.82002616071479 56.12467338719466, -3.822494289752217 56.12617362965904, -3.821220064249715 56.12712699350223, -3.825564170843869 56.12882415203166, -3.825752151290629 56.130753409138826, -3.824100178442113 56.13256607484409, -3.823998832015683 56.133484164664324, -3.821135438458952 56.13248401970859, -3.817932021274158 56.132117848650296, -3.817374317550423 56.132575366233326, -3.81209780361697 56.132607965700906, -3.811744993591876 56.13126521397462, -3.813039473930721 56.13039252984246, -3.812530442932529 56.13017534676917, -3.813557852338781 56.12978284408733, -3.812605434924066 56.12869152488113, -3.813222788987018 56.12847577998495, -3.811879859368277 56.12763281546998, -3.810479285208457 56.127550725552, -3.810905950204942 56.12719439760361, -3.809826995017889 56.126878727280605, -3.810031440151754 56.126303006146415)) |
The most flexible way to access the data is by using SPARQL, a query language, analagous to SQL for relational databases, for retrieving and manipulating data from graph databases like ours. We support SPARQL 1.1 query syntax. Many online tutorials are available.
To submit a SPARQL query from your code, you issue an HTTP GET or POST to our endpoint:http://statistics.gov.scot/sparql, with the query itself as a url-encoded parameter called query.
For example, to run the following simple SPARQL query and get the results as JSON:
SELECT * WHERE {?s ?p ?o} LIMIT 10Issue a POST to the endpoint, with the query in the body, and an Accept header of sparql-results+json:
POST http://statistics.gov.scot/sparql HTTP/1.1
Host: statistics.gov.scot
Accept: application/sparql-results+json
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
query=SELECT+%2A+WHERE+%7B%3Fs+%3Fp+%3Fo%7D+LIMIT+10Issue a GET to the following URL (note the .json extension - see the formats section for more detail on this):
GET http://statistics.gov.scot/sparql.json?query=SELECT+%2A+WHERE+%7B%3Fs+%3Fp+%3Fo%7D+LIMIT+10Scroll down to the end of this page for examples of both of these methods in a few different languages.
As with other aspects of our API, to get the data in different formats, you can use either (a) a format extension or (b) an HTTP Accept header. Available result formats depend on the type of SPARQL query. There are four main forms:
SELECT queries return tabular results, and the formats available reflect this:
| Format | Extensions | Accept Headers |
|---|---|---|
| XML | .xml |
application/xml, application/sparql-results+xml |
| JSON | .json |
application/json, application/sparql-results+json |
| Text | .txt, .text | text/plain |
| CSV | .csv | text/csv |
CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE queries return graph data, so the results are available in the same formats as our resource APIs:
| Format | Extensions | Accept Headers |
|---|---|---|
| RDF/XML | .rdf | application/rdf+xml |
| N-triples | .nt, .txt, .text | application/n-triples, text/plain |
| Turtle | .ttl | text/turtle |
| JSON-LD | .json | application/ld+json, application/json |
ASK queries return a boolean result:
| Format | Extensions | Accept Headers |
|---|---|---|
| XML | .xml | application/xml, application/sparql-results+xml |
| JSON | .json | application/json, application/sparql-results+json |
| Text | .txt, .text | text/plain |
We accept page and per_page parameters for paginating the results of SELECT queries (we automatically modify your query to apply LIMIT and OFFSET clauses). For other query types (i.e. DESCRIBE, CONSTRUCT, ASK), pagination like this doesn’t make so much sense, so these parameters are ignored.
For requests made through the website (i.e. HTML format), the page size is defaulted to 20. For requests to our sparql endpoint for data formats (i.e. non-HTML), there will be no defaults for these parameters (i.e. results are unlimited. For performance reasons we generally advise LIMITing your query if possible).
You can parameterise your SPARQL by including %{tokens} in your queries, and providing values for the tokens in the request parameters.
Note that the following tokens are reserved and cannot be used as parameters for substitution:
controlleractionpageper_pageidcommitutf8queryOur servers are configured to allow access from all domains. This means that if you’re writing JavaScript to request data from our server in to a web page hosted on another domain, your browser should check this header and allow it.
If you need to support very old browsers, you can additionally pass a callback parameter and the results will be wrapped in that function. For example:
http://statistics.gov.scot/sparql.json?callback=myCallbackFunction&query=SELECT+%2A+WHERE+%7B%3Fs+%3Fp+%3Fo%7D+LIMIT+10This help topic on the jQuery website has more details.
Here’s a couple of examples running a query using the widely available cURL command line program.
Request the results as XML, using a POST:
curl -X POST -H "Accept: application/sparql-results+xml" -d "query=SELECT%20*%20WHERE%20%7B%3Fs%20%3Fp%20%3Fo%7D%20LIMIT%2010" http://statistics.gov.scot/sparqlRequest the results as JSON, using a GET:
curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/sparql-results+json" http://statistics.gov.scot/sparql?query=SELECT%20*%20WHERE%20%7B%3Fs%20%3Fp%20%3Fo%7D%20LIMIT%2010This example HTML page uses jQuery to issue a POST to our SPARQL endpoint, requesting the results as JSON.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang='en'>
<head>
<script src='http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js'></script>
</head>
<body>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var query = 'SELECT * WHERE {?s ?p ?o} LIMIT 10';
var url = 'http://statistics.gov.scot/sparql.json';
$.ajax({
method: 'POST',
dataType: 'json',
url: url,
data: {query: query},
success: function(data) {
alert('success: ' + data.results.bindings.length + ' results');
console.log(data);
}
});
</script>
</body>
</html>