RDF Core

🌐 Official Homepage

A type-safe, and extensible Dart library for representing and manipulating RDF data without any further dependencies.

Core of a whole family of projects

If you are looking for more rdf-related functionality, have a look at our companion projects:

encode and decode rdf/xml format: rdf_xml
easy-to-use constants for many well-known vocabularies: rdf_vocabularies
generate your own easy-to-use constants for other vocabularies with a build_runner: rdf_vocabulary_to_dart
map Dart Objects ↔️ RDF: rdf_mapper

✨ Features

Type-safe RDF model: IRIs, Literals, Triples, Graphs, and more
Serialization-agnostic: Clean separation from Turtle/JSON-LD/N-Triples
Extensible & modular: Build your own adapters, plugins, and integrations
Spec-compliant: Follows W3C RDF 1.1 and related standards
Convenience global variables: Easy usage with turtle, jsonld and ntriples for quick encoding/decoding

🚀 Quick Start

Convenience Globals

The library provides global variables for quick and easy access:

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';

// Easy access to codecs through global variables
final graphFromTurtle = turtle.decode(turtleData);
final graphFromJsonLd = jsonldGraph.decode(jsonLdData);
final graphFromNTriples = ntriples.decode(ntriplesData);

// Or use the pre-configured RdfCore instance
final graph = rdf.decode(data, contentType: 'text/turtle');

Manual Graph Creation

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';

void main() {
  final subject = IriTerm('http://example.org/alice');
  final predicate = IriTerm('http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name');
  final object = LiteralTerm.withLanguage('Alice', 'en');
  final triple = Triple(subject, predicate, object);
  final graph = RdfGraph(triples: [triple]);

  print(graph);
}

Decoding and Encoding Turtle

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';

void main() {
  // Example: Decode a simple Turtle document
  final turtleData = '''
    @prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
    <http://example.org/alice> foaf:name "Alice"@en .
  ''';

  // Option 1: Using the convenience global variable
  final graph = turtle.decode(turtleData);
  
  // Option 2: Using RdfCore instance
  // final rdfCore = RdfCore.withStandardCodecs();
  // final graph = rdfCore.decode(turtleData, contentType: 'text/turtle');

  // Print decoded triples
  for (final triple in graph.triples) {
    print('${triple.subject} ${triple.predicate} ${triple.object}');
  }

  // Encode the graph back to Turtle
  final serialized = turtle.encode(graph);
  print('\nEncoded Turtle:\n$serialized');
}

Decoding and Encoding N-Triples

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';

void main() {
  // Example: Decode a simple N-Triples document
  final ntriplesData = '''
    <http://example.org/alice> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name> "Alice"@en .
    <http://example.org/alice> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/knows> <http://example.org/bob> .
  ''';

  // Using the convenience global variable
  final graph = ntriples.decode(ntriplesData);

  // Print decoded triples
  for (final triple in graph.triples) {
    print('${triple.subject} ${triple.predicate} ${triple.object}');
  }

  // Encode the graph back to N-Triples
  final serialized = ntriples.encode(graph);
  print('\nEncoded N-Triples:\n$serialized');
}

Decoding and Encoding JSON-LD

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';

void main() {
  // Example: Decode a simple JSON-LD document
  final jsonLdData = '''
  {
    "@context": {
      "name": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name",
      "knows": {
        "@id": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/knows",
        "@type": "@id"
      },
      "Person": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person"
    },
    "@id": "http://example.org/alice",
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Alice",
    "knows": [
      {
        "@id": "http://example.org/bob",
        "@type": "Person",
        "name": "Bob"
      }
    ]
  }
  ''';

  // Using the convenience global variable
  final graph = jsonldGraph.decode(jsonLdData);

  // Print decoded triples
  for (final triple in graph.triples) {
    print('${triple.subject} ${triple.predicate} ${triple.object}');
  }

  // Encode the graph back to JSON-LD
  final serialized = jsonldGraph.encode(graph);
  print('\nEncoded JSON-LD:\n$serialized');
}

🧑‍💻 Advanced Usage

Decoding and Encoding RDF/XML

With the help of the separate package rdf_xml you can easily encode/decode RDF/XML as well.

dart pub add rdf_xml

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';
import 'package:rdf_xml/rdf_xml.dart';

void main() {
  
  // Option 1: Use the codec directly
  final graph = rdfxml.decode(rdfXmlData);
  final serialized = rdfxml.encode(graph);
  
  // Option 2: Register with RdfCore
  final rdf = RdfCore.withStandardCodecs(additionalCodecs: [RdfXmlCodec()])
  
  // Now it can be used with the rdf instance in addition to turtle etc.
  final graphFromRdf = rdf.decode(rdfXmlData, contentType: 'application/rdf+xml');
}

Graph Merging

final merged = graph1.merge(graph2);

Pattern Queries

final results = graph.findTriples(subject: subject);

Blank Node Handling

// Note: BlankNodeTerm is based on identity - if you call BlankNodeTerm() 
// a second time, it will be a different blank node and get a different 
// label in encoding codecs. You have to reuse an instance, if you
// want to refer to the same blank node.
final bnode = BlankNodeTerm();
final newGraph = graph.withTriple(Triple(bnode, predicate, object));

Non-Standard Turtle decoding

import 'package:rdf_core/rdf_core.dart';

final nonStandardTurtle = '''
@base <http://my.example.org/> .
@prefix ex: <http://example.org/> 
ex:resource123 a Type . // "Type" without prefix is resolved to <http://my.example.org/Type>
''';

// Create an options instance with the appropriate configuration
final options = TurtleDecoderOptions(
  parsingFlags: {
    TurtleParsingFlag.allowDigitInLocalName,       // Allow local names with digits like "resource123"
    TurtleParsingFlag.allowMissingDotAfterPrefix,  // Allow prefix declarations without trailing dot
    TurtleParsingFlag.allowIdentifiersWithoutColon, // Treat terms without colon as IRIs resolved against base URI
  }
);

// Option 1: Use the options with the global rdf variable
final graph = rdf.decode(nonStandardTurtle, options: options);

// Option 2: Use the options to derive a new codec from the global turtle variable
final configuredTurtle = turtle.withOptions(decoder: options);
final graph2 = configuredTurtle.decode(nonStandardTurtle);

// Option 3: Configure a custom TurtleCodec with specific parsing flags
final customTurtleCodec = TurtleCodec(decoderOptions: options);
final graph3 = customTurtleCodec.decode(nonStandardTurtle);

// Option 4: Register the custom codec with an RdfCore instance - note that this 
// time we register only the specified codecs here. If we want jsonld, we have to 
// add it to the list as well.
final customRdf = RdfCore.withCodecs(codecs: [customTurtleCodec]);
final graph4 = customRdf.decode(nonStandardTurtle, contentType: 'text/turtle');

⚠️ Error Handling

All core methods throw Dart exceptions (e.g., ArgumentError, RdfValidationException) for invalid input or constraint violations.
Catch and handle exceptions for robust RDF processing.

🚦 Performance

Triple, Term, and IRI equality/hashCode are O(1)
Graph queries (findTriples) are O(n) in the number of triples
Designed for large-scale, high-performance RDF workloads

🗺️ API Overview

Type	Description
`IriTerm`	Represents an IRI (Internationalized Resource Identifier)
`LiteralTerm`	Represents an RDF literal value
`BlankNodeTerm`	Represents a blank node
`Triple`	Atomic RDF statement (subject, predicate, object)
`RdfGraph`	Collection of RDF triples
`RdfGraphCodec`	Base class for decoding/encoding RDF Graphs in various formats
`RdfGraphDecoder`	Base class for decoding RDF Graphs
`RdfGraphEncoder`	Base class for encoding RDF Graphs
`turtle`	Global convenience variable for Turtle codec
`jsonldGraph`	Global convenience variable for JSON-LD codec
`ntriples`	Global convenience variable for N-Triples codec
`rdf`	Global RdfCore instance with standard codecs

📚 Standards & References

🛣️ Roadmap / Next Steps

RDF 1.1: Datasets with Named Graphs
Improve jsonld decoder/encoder (full RdfDataset support, better support for base uri, include realworld tests for e.g. foaf.jsonld)
RDF 1.2: Rdf-Star
SHACL and schema validation
Performance optimizations for large graphs
Optimize streaming decoding and encoding

🤝 Contributing

Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome!

Fork the repo and submit a PR
See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines
Join the discussion in GitHub Issues

🤖 AI Policy

This project is proudly human-led and human-controlled, with all key decisions, design, and code reviews made by people. At the same time, it stands on the shoulders of LLM giants: generative AI tools are used throughout the development process to accelerate iteration, inspire new ideas, and improve documentation quality. We believe that combining human expertise with the best of AI leads to higher-quality, more innovative open source software.