Chapter 9. RDF and Perl, PHP, and Python

There is commonality among many of the APIs that manipulate RDF/XML, regardless of the programming language in which the API is implemented. Usually a new model is created, some form of storage mechanism is assigned to it, and statements are added to it by first creating the resource, predicate, and object associated with the statement, and then creating the statement itself. This similarity of procedure is one of the advantages to the metadata structure of RDF—a fundamental data structure transcends implementation. This basic data structure was apparent in the last chapter, which manipulated RDF using Java. This same data structure and similarity of actions are also apparent in this chapter, which looks at working with RDF/XML using what I call the three Ps of programming.

If you've worked on web development, particularly within a Unix environment, chances are you've used at least one of the three Ps: Perl, PHP, or Python. Perl has become ubiquitous across most Unix environments (which now include Mac OS X); with the help of ActiveState, Perl is also fairly common in Windows. PHP is now beginning to rival ASP as the web scripting language of choice, especially since PHP is designed to work with Apache, the most widely used web server in the world. Python is much newer, but is increasing in popularity at a rapid pace due to the extremely loyal following it has attracted.

Considering the popularity of these three languages, it's not a surprise that each boasts more than one language-based RDF/XML API or other technology. It would be difficult to find and cover every Perl-, PHP-, and Python-based RDF/XML API. Instead, in this chapter, I focus on the APIs that have had recent updates and/or are most widely used. This includes the APIs I've used in my own projects, noted in the discussions.

The online book support site lists download locations for the most recent PHP, Perl, and Python RDF/XML tools, utilities, and APIs. For more on Perl, see the Perl resource site at http://perl.com. The main Python site is http://python.org, and PHP's main site is http://php.net.