Common Foundations for SHACL, ShEx, and PG-Schema

Shqiponja Ahmetaj, Iovka Boneva, Jan Hidders, Katja Hose, Maxime Jakubowski, Jose Emilio Labra Gayo, Wim Martens, Fabio Mogavero, Filip Murlak, Cem Okulmus, Axel Polleres, Ognjen Savkovic, Mantas Šimkus, Dominik Tomaszuk

Track: Semantics and knowledge

Keywords: RDF, property graphs, graph databases, schema languages, graph data validation

TL;DR: A formal comparison of SHACL, ShEx, and PG-Schema schema languages, highlighting their core components, shared functionalities, and unique features for graph data validation.

Abstract: The Semantic Web and Graph Database communities have developed three distinct schema languages for RDF and graph-structured data: SHACL, ShEx, and PG-Schema. Each language has its unique approach to defining constraints and validating graph data. In this work, we provide formal, concise definitions of the core components of each of these schema languages. We employ a uniform framework to facilitate a comprehensive comparison between the languages and identify a common set of functionalities, shedding light on both overlapping and distinctive features of the three languages.

Submission Number: 2073