Technology Agnostic Join


Wolfgang Fahl

Is there a standard for JOIN operations that is technology agnostic and does not care whehter results come from SPARQl, SQL, or APIs?

⚠️ LLM-generated content notice: Parts of this page may have been created or edited with the assistance of a large language model (LLM). The prompts that have been used might be on the page itself, the discussion page or in straight forward cases the prompt was just "Write a mediawiki page on X" with X being the page name. While the content has been reviewed it might still not be accurate or error-free. Mistral:


There isn't a single, universally accepted standard for JOIN operations that is entirely technology-agnostic and applicable across SPARQL, SQL, and APIs. However, there are some concepts and frameworks that aim to provide a more unified approach to data integration and querying across different technologies. Here are a few notable ones:

   RDF and SPARQL:
       RDF (Resource Description Framework): RDF is a standard model for data interchange on the web. It allows data to be structured in a way that can be easily integrated and queried.
       SPARQL: SPARQL is a query language for RDF data. It provides a way to perform JOIN operations on RDF data, which can be used to integrate data from different sources.
   GraphQL:
       GraphQL: GraphQL is a query language for APIs and a runtime for executing those queries by using a type system you define for your data. It allows clients to request exactly the data they need, making it easier to perform JOIN-like operations across different data sources.
   Federated Query Systems:
       Federated Query Systems: These systems allow querying across multiple databases or data sources. Examples include Apache Drill, Presto, and Teiid. They provide a unified query interface that can perform JOIN operations across different data sources, including SQL databases, NoSQL databases, and APIs.
   Data Virtualization:
       Data Virtualization: This approach involves creating a virtual layer that abstracts the underlying data sources and provides a unified query interface. Tools like Denodo and Cisco Data Virtualization Manager allow JOIN operations across different data sources without moving the data.
   Linked Data and Semantic Web:
       Linked Data: This concept involves publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful through semantic queries. Linked Data principles can be used to integrate data from different sources, including SQL databases and APIs.
       Semantic Web: The Semantic Web extends the Web by encoding meaning into the data, making it easier to integrate and query data from different sources.

While these approaches provide ways to perform JOIN-like operations across different technologies, there isn't a single standard that encompasses all of them. Each approach has its own strengths and use cases, and the choice of technology often depends on the specific requirements of the application.

🖨 🚪