DATA ACCESS

• US 20110022629A1
• Filed: 03/20/2009
• Published: 01/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Glover, Tiimothy Richard
• Application Number:
  US12/935,825
• Publication Number:
  US 20110022629A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174

Abstract

A method of accessing and manipulating Resource Description Framework (RDF) data stores using a spreadsheet application user interface. Data store queries can be performed on the data store by submitting queries inside cells and written in SPARQL. The record sets resulting from SPARQL queries are stored with the cells which contained the original query so that cells can be multi-valued. Cell referencing allows the data in multi-value cells to be accessed.

Claims

1. A method of accessing a data store containing data represented as data triples, in response to a query submitted via a grid based user interface having a plurality of cells, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving from a first cell, a query for information stored in said data store;

submitting said query to said data store; and

in a case where the query returns more than one result, storing the entire set of results into said first cell such that each of the results in the set is individually addressable.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the query contains at least one reference to at least one other cell in the grid based interface, the method further comprising, prior to submitting said query to the data store:

determining the value of the at least one referenced cell, for each reference in the query; and

replacing each references in the received query with the respective determined value.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein when the at least one reference is to a second reference cell, the determining step comprises:

extracting row and column data from the reference cell to determine the location and value of the cell being referenced by the second reference cell.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein when the referenced cell is multi-valued, the determining step comprises:

extracting row, column and depth data from the reference cell to determine the location and value of the cell being referenced in the query.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein when the referenced cell contains at least two variables, the determining step comprises:

extracting row, column, variable and depth data from the reference cell to determine the location, variable and value of the cell being referenced in the query.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the query is a SPARQL query, and the data store is a Resource Description Framework data store.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein each cell is associated with a respective first storage area for receiving user data and a second storage area for storing the result of processing said user data

8. Apparatus for accessing a data store containing data represented as data triples, in response to a query submitted via a grid based user interface having a plurality of cells, the apparatus comprising:

a receiver for receiving from a first cell, a query for information stored in said data store;

means for sending said query to said data store; and

means for storing the entire set of results into said first cell in a case where the query returns more than one result, wherein each of the results in the set is individually addressable.

9. Apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the query contains at least one reference to at least one other cell in the grid based interface, the apparatus further comprising:

means for determining the value of the at least one referenced cell, for each reference in the query; and

means for replacing each of the references in the received query with the respective determined value.