Home/ Questions/Q 497387
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-13T05:46:35+00:00

if a triple store contains twice the same triple, what is (if any exist)

  • 0

if a triple store contains twice the same triple, what is (if any exist) the authoritative position about this redundancy ?

Additionally, should a triplestore be allowed to store twice the same triple within the same context ?

I ask this because in rdflib apparently you can store the same triple twice (or more). This is the reader

import rdflib
from rdflib import store

s = rdflib.plugin.get('MySQL', store.Store)('rdfstore')

config_string = "host=localhost,password=foo,user=foo,db=foo"
rt = s.open(config_string,create=False)
if rt != store.VALID_STORE:
    s.open(config_string,create=True)

graph = rdflib.ConjunctiveGraph(s, identifier = rdflib.URIRef("urn:uuid:a19f9b78-cc43-4866-b9a1-4b009fe91f52"))
rows = graph.query("SELECT ?id ?value { ?id <http://localhost#ha> ?value . }")
for r in rows:
    print r[0], r[1]

and this is the writer

import rdflib
from rdflib import store

s = rdflib.plugin.get('MySQL', store.Store)('rdfstore')

config_string = "host=localhost,password=foo,user=foo,db=foo"
rt = s.open(config_string,create=False)
if rt != store.VALID_STORE:
    s.open(config_string,create=True)

graph = rdflib.ConjunctiveGraph(s, identifier = rdflib.URIRef("urn:uuid:a19f9b78-cc43-4866-b9a1-4b009fe91f52"))
graph.add( ( rdflib.URIRef("http://localhost/1000"), rdflib.URIRef("http://localhost#ha"), rdflib.Literal("18")) )
graph.commit()

This is what I obtain

sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./reader2.py 
table kb_7b066eca61_relations Doesn't exist
table kb_7b066eca61_relations Doesn't exist
sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./reader2.py 
sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./reader2.py 
sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./writer2.py 
sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./reader2.py 
http://localhost/1000 18
sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./writer2.py 
sbo@dhcp-045:~/tmp/gd $ python ./reader2.py 
http://localhost/1000 18
http://localhost/1000 18

To me it appears as a bug. A modified version shows me that both triples belong to the same context, and there are indeed two triples as well

len : 2
http://localhost/1000 18
http://localhost/1000 18
(rdflib.URIRef('http://localhost/1000'), rdflib.URIRef('http://localhost#ha'), rdflib.Literal(u'18'), <Graph identifier=urn:uuid:a19f9b78-cc43-4866-b9a1-4b009fe91f52 (<class 'rdflib.Graph.Graph'>)>)
(rdflib.URIRef('http://localhost/1000'), rdflib.URIRef('http://localhost#ha'), rdflib.Literal(u'18'), <Graph identifier=urn:uuid:a19f9b78-cc43-4866-b9a1-4b009fe91f52 (<class 'rdflib.Graph.Graph'>)>)
Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    An RDF triple store is a set of triples, so the same triple cannot be present twice, by definition. However, most rdf stores are actually quad stores (sets of rdf graphs also known as datasets) and in that case, the triple may appear multiple times. That is sometimes called context, depending on the store (eg mine, Redland). Authority is really up to the user to define what meaning a particular graph name/context name has.

    • 0