| s | p_blank | o_blank |
|---|---|---|
| /id/statistical-geography/S02002101 | http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type | geosparql: Geometry |
| /id/statistical-geography/S02002101 | geosparql: asWKT | POLYGON ((-4.612073858840094 55.61525318584583, -4.610941257339727 55.61350655788949, -4.6094503760977386 55.612819208110416, -4.609654500683931 55.612545212589694, -4.610943216183199 55.61258068787284, -4.6120827064333145 55.61271149924506, -4.614514677928398 55.61231579614097, -4.616612486622666 55.6116238477609, -4.619390324442976 55.61136676381637, -4.620152388365483 55.61112575905873, -4.620722635513892 55.6106281711393, -4.62246658724965 55.609871785614466, -4.6255801670769765 55.60917591916753, -4.626518127323855 55.60919177699303, -4.627612371184216 55.60964471312569, -4.62826458230637 55.61055311042757, -4.6284928114078605 55.61128735463488, -4.628980654067387 55.611743143100185, -4.63095635873217 55.61215272730118, -4.631215093473954 55.61269549152433, -4.633073582398613 55.61238907523671, -4.633504511385779 55.61203244932917, -4.635369825726071 55.612068850351, -4.635423561255549 55.611717396739714, -4.637334081908139 55.61182576589074, -4.637662309265289 55.612465079851866, -4.638802545829357 55.612679555063046, -4.639168490198427 55.613414070519156, -4.638554376525239 55.614390188093694, -4.6386668118803405 55.61510280033896, -4.637622272889818 55.61587460638302, -4.635813722839806 55.61685015860733, -4.634164277631047 55.615939980384, -4.631187177351549 55.61512303328181, -4.626785630524042 55.61461519880695, -4.625749119967785 55.61489451904931, -4.623001484170272 55.614703490429235, -4.621554177176351 55.61452046087661, -4.621606318467819 55.615301358199254, -4.6204851287891255 55.61538000204899, -4.618366784542284 55.614831293085466, -4.617449461392366 55.614856781780766, -4.61692385604679 55.61513566818074, -4.612073858840094 55.61525318584583)) |
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>