cli

sparq-cli

sparq-cli is the command-line front-end to the sparq RDF triplestore + SPARQL engine. It loads RDF files (with transparent gzip/bzip2/zstd decompression), runs SPARQL, builds and queries out-of-core memory-mapped indexes, and materializes reasoning closures (RDFS / OWL-RL / N3).

Argument style (important): the CLI uses a hand-rolled positional parser — there is no clap, no --help, and no GNU-style flags except --reason/--proof, query's --format/--count, and diff's --exact. The first token is the subcommand; the rest are positional and order matters. An unknown/missing subcommand prints a short usage block and exits with code 2.

Quickstart

Run via cargo (the binary is sparq-cli; build with --release — debug builds are far slower):

# Load a Turtle file and run one query — prints the RESULTS (a readable table by default).
cargo run --release -p sparq-cli -- \
  query data.ttl turtle 'SELECT ?s ?p ?o WHERE { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 10'
# stderr: loaded N triples in 0.123s (...)
# stdout: a table of the solution bindings + a "(K row(s))" footer

query emits real results by FORM: SELECT → the solution bindings, ASK → a boolean (true/false), CONSTRUCT/DESCRIBE → the resulting triples as N-Triples. Pick the SELECT/ASK serialisation with --format <table|tsv|csv|xml|json|ntriples> (default table); add --count to restore the old count-only line (<n> solutions/triples in <ms>ms). See the query entry under Key APIs for the full matrix.

format is one of turtle | ntriples | nquads | trig (aliases: n-triples, n-quads, application/trig). nquads/trig are loaded as a dataset so GRAPH {} works. Compressed inputs are auto-detected by extension (.gz, .bz2, .zst/.zstd) and streamed.

Key APIs (subcommands)

All invoked as sparq-cli <subcommand> <args...>:

• query <data-file> <format> <sparql> [--format <out>] [--count] [--reason <rdfs|owl|n3|el|datalog:<rules.dlog>>] — load file, run one query, print its results to stdout, dispatched by query form:
  • SELECT → the solution bindings. --format chooses the serialisation: table (default, a readable fixed-width ASCII table with a (K row(s)) footer), tsv / csv / xml (W3C SPARQL Results, reusing sparq-server's serialisers), or json (SPARQL 1.1 Results JSON, the engine's direct serialiser). ntriples is not meaningful for bindings and falls back to tsv.
  • ASK → a boolean: true / false. --format json / --format xml emit the W3C boolean documents ({"head":{},"boolean":…} / <sparql>…<boolean>…</boolean></sparql>); other formats print the bare token.
  • CONSTRUCT / DESCRIBE → the resulting triples serialised as N-Triples (always; --format is a SELECT/ASK selector and is ignored for the graph forms).
  • --count restores the historical count-only output (<n> solutions in <ms>ms for SELECT/ASK, <n> triples in <ms>ms for the graph forms) — the backward-compatible escape hatch for scripts that scraped the count.
  • An unknown --format value is a usage error (exit 2); a query/runtime error exits 1.
• diff <file-a> <file-b> [--exact] (opt-in diff feature; [GPT-5.6] sq-lsp7k.28) — auto-detect each RDF format from .nt, .ttl, .nq, .trig, or .jsonld (before an optional compression extension), compare the documents as triple sets, and emit a deterministic N-Triples patch. Lines prefixed by - form the first lexicographically sorted block; lines prefixed by + form the second. Exit 0 means identical sets and empty stdout; exit 1 means different sets. Named-graph names are discarded, duplicate triples collapse, and blank-node labels compare exactly as loaded. --exact is currently a compatibility alias for that same behavior.
• reason <data-file> <format> <rdfs|owl|n3|el|datalog:<rules.dlog>> [out.nt] — materialize the entailed closure; print closure triple count; with out.nt, write the full closure as N-Triples. Add --proof (N3 only) to print each derivation step. el needs the opt-in el feature (see classify below); datalog:<rules.dlog> needs the opt-in datalog feature (see the stratified-Datalog example below).
• classify <data-file> <format> [out.nt] (opt-in el feature; [OPUS-5] sq-2ch27) — run the OWL 2 EL consequence-based classifier (sparq-reason-el) and materialize the class-subsumption lattice as rdfs:subClassOf triples (plus the role-inclusion closure as rdfs:subPropertyOf, since the CLI's el feature also turns on the crate's rbox role automaton). Scope: complete for the E1+E2 fragment, not for OWL 2 EL as a whole — the CLI does not enable the crate's cdomain feature, so concrete-domain axioms (see the skipped_axioms note below) are deferred. Prints the classification report as name<TAB>value lines on stdout — triples, named_classes, emitted_subclassof, emitted_subpropertyof, skipped_axioms, unsatisfiable_classes, thing_unsatisfiable, rbox_non_regular — and with out.nt writes the lattice-augmented graph as N-Triples. Honest incompleteness is reported, never swallowed: a non-zero skipped_axioms means class axioms used a construct this build does not reason over and were not applied — either outside EL entirely (union / complement / allValuesFrom / cardinality / multi-individual oneOf), or in OWL 2 EL but deferred here because the CLI omits cdomain: every concrete-domain axiom (faceted owl:onDatatype/owl:withRestrictions, literal owl:hasValue/owl:oneOf) is skipped, so a valid EL ontology using datatype restrictions can classify to an incomplete hierarchy; rbox_non_regular means the told RBox has a property-chain cycle, so derivations stay sound but the completeness argument does not hold. Both also print an explanatory NOTE on stderr.
• build <file[.gz|.bz2|.zst]> <format> <dir> [chunk_millions=16] — EXTERNAL-MEMORY build: stream the (compressed) document straight to on-disk memory-mapped indexes via disk-backed sort/merge. For datasets whose indexes exceed RAM. chunk_millions sets the in-memory run size. Writes RAW perms by default; set SPARQ_BUILD_COMPRESSED=1 to emit block-compressed (SPQCPRM1) perms directly from the merge tail, skipping a later recompress (byte-identical to build-then-recompress).
• save <data-file> <format> <dir> [compressed] [--format-v2] — load into RAM then persist the six permutation indexes to <dir>. Add the literal word compressed for block-compressed permutations, and --format-v2 to write those as SPQCPRM2 instead of SPQCPRM1 (see the emit-format note below).
• query-mmap <dir> <sparql> [--format <out>] [--count] — open a saved/built dir with indexes MEMORY-MAPPED (out-of-core) and run a query, printing its results. Output is at parity with query: SELECT → bindings (default a readable table; --format <table|tsv|csv|xml|json|ntriples> selects the serialisation), ASK → a boolean (--format json|xml → the W3C boolean documents), CONSTRUCT/DESCRIBE → the resulting triples as N-Triples; --count restores the legacy count-only line (<n> solutions/triples in <ms>ms). The only difference from query is the data source — an mmap-backed Graph::open instead of an in-RAM load (permutations stay in the OS page cache, not the process heap). An unknown --format is a usage error (exit 2); a query/runtime error exits 1.
• recompress <src-dir> <dst-dir> [--v2] — re-persist a saved dir with block-compressed permutations without re-parsing (dirs must differ). --v2 writes SPQCPRM2 (see the emit-format note below).
• Compressed-perm emit format (--format-v2 / --v2; opt-in spqcprm2 feature; [SONNET-4.6] sq-kmve2). A build emits SPQCPRM1 by DEFAULT and the V2 emitter is opt-in (cargo build -p sparq-cli --features spqcprm2); the V2 reader always ships, so a SPQCPRM2 dir opens anywhere. The flag is the per-invocation form of SPARQ_EMIT_FORMAT=v2 — same effect, no env var to leak into child processes — and takes precedence over that variable, which still works unchanged. Fail-closed: --format-v2 without the compressed positional, an unknown --flag, or the flag on a binary built WITHOUT spqcprm2 are all usage errors (exit 2) rather than a silent SPQCPRM1 write. Whether V2 is smaller than V1 is corpus-dependent (it frame-of-reference encodes the col2 reset) — measure on your data; see the data-formats skill.
• compact <persist-dir> — WAL compaction / vacuum for erasure-completeness (sq-x32t). OFFLINE operator command: stop a --persist server, run this on its directory, restart. Opens the dir (replaying its WAL into the live overlay), then physically rewrites the store to only the current live triples with a re-interned (purged) dictionary, and atomically swaps the directory (rollback-safe two-rename + WAL truncate; an interrupted swap is healed on the next open). So a logically-DELETEd / DROPped triple's data — including an orphaned literal value — is gone from disk, not just hidden. The live triple set is preserved exactly (round-trip). The online equivalent is POST /admin/compact on a running server (see the http-server skill). Honest scope: scrubs the engine's own on-disk segments + dictionary; it cannot reach off-box copies (filesystem snapshots, COW history, external backups) — see compliance/privacy/retention-erasure-runbook.md §7a/§7b.
• dump <file[.gz|.bz2|.zst]> <in-format> <out-format> — load an RDF document and re-serialize the whole graph (default + named graphs) to stdout in the RDF writer matrix. out-format ∈ turtle | turtle-pretty | trig | trig-pretty | nquads | ntriples | jsonld[-expanded|-flattened|-compacted] | jsonld-pretty[-expanded|-flattened|-compacted] (Turtle emits the default graph only; trig/nquads/jsonld emit the full dataset; bare jsonld == jsonld-expanded, bare jsonld-pretty == jsonld-pretty-expanded; the turtle-pretty/trig-pretty forms emit deterministic, idiomatic Turtle/TriG — sorted, blank-line-separated subject blocks, the engine home for the site's pretty-Turtle reshaper; the jsonld-pretty* forms emit indented JSON-LD — a whitespace-only re-indent of the minified document, so same ordering, same RDF). The writer matrix is sparq-engine/serialize-rdf (zero new deps — the JSON-LD writer is a native, hand-rolled emitter with no json-ld/serde crate), pulled into the default build by the default-on jsonld feature (see "Default cargo features" below). dump also reads a JSON-LD <in-format> (jsonld / json-ld / application/ld+json) in the default build — JSON-LD is default-on ([OPUS-4.8] sq-oy1f.4). A --no-default-features build drops both the oxjsonld parser and the writer matrix (dump then errors on a jsonld out-format, and a jsonld in-format → exit 2). Unknown out-format → exit 2.
• ingest <file[.gz|.bz2|.zst]> [parse|intern|full] [max_millions] — streaming-throughput experiment over N-Triples: parse (decompress+parse+count), intern (+dictionary), full (+build indexes). Reports triples/s.
• bench <data-file> <format> <queries-dir> [iters=5] [count|materialize|json] — load once, run every *.rq in the dir (sorted) iters times, print TSV <name>\t<rows>\t<min_micros>. Mode default materialize.
• memstat <data-file> <format> [compressed] ([FABLE-5] sq-7d3dj.32) — load a document and print a deterministic memory-composition breakdown as name<TAB>value lines on stdout: triple/term counts, the self-accounted heap total decomposed into dictionary / six-permutation store / numeric+temporal caches (bytes and B-per-triple, plus dict B-per-term), and the kernel's VmRSS/VmHWM (post-load resident + peak during load; Linux /proc/self/status, 0 elsewhere). Trailing literal compressed (or SPARQ_STORE_PROFILE=compressed, OR'd, applied once) re-encodes into the memory-bound in-RAM mode (Graph::into_compressed: block-compressed permutations + blob dictionary) before reporting, so both in-memory framings come from one instrument (the mode line says which). The at-scale extension of the CI store_bytes_per_triple metric — driven by scripts/bench/bytes-per-triple.sh (bench id bytes-per-triple) for the in-memory-vs-external bytes/triple envelope. Numbers are host-reported and non-canonical off the dedicated bench box; never commit them into docs.
• bench-mmap <index-dir> <queries-dir> [iters=5] [count|materialize|json] [decompress] — same as bench but opens the dataset out-of-core; trailing literal decompress decodes compressed perms to RAM first. Mode default count.
• scaling <data-file> <format> <queries-dir> [threads=1,2,4,8,…] [iters=3] — parallel-efficiency sweep across rayon pool sizes; TSV subsystem\tthreads\tbest_ms\tspeedup\tefficiency.
• probe-compress <perm-file> / compare-compress <data-file> <format> [<sparql>] / bench-remap [n] [dict] [iters] — measurement/instrumentation probes.
• tabular <csv[.gz|.zst|.bz2]> [<name>=<csv> …] [flags] (opt-in tabular feature; [FABLE-5] sq-lsp7k.8) — materializing tabular→RDF import, streaming end-to-end (CSV rows → first-party RFC-4180 reader → per-row N-Triples chunks → the parallel NT ingest; no whole-file buffering; compressed inputs auto-detected by extension). Two modes:
  • Direct mapping (default): subject = --template IRI template with {col} + {_row} (1-based data-row number) placeholders, default <base><table>/row/{_row}; predicate = <base><table>#<column>; object = the cell with datatype inference (xsd:integer/xsd:decimal/xsd:double/xsd:boolean, else plain string; --no-infer disables); each row typed rdf:type <base><table> (--class <iri|none> overrides). --base defaults to http://example.com/; table = file stem; template-substituted values are IRI-safe percent-encoded. An EMPTY cell is NULL → no triple (a NULL in the subject template skips the row).
  • R2RML (--mapping <r2rml.ttl>): the materializing subset over CSV logical tables (rr:tableName binds to a CSV by file stem, or explicitly via a <name>=<path> positional). Supports rr:subjectMap/rr:subject, rr:class, rr:predicateObjectMap, rr:predicateMap/rr:predicate, rr:objectMap/rr:object, rr:template/rr:column/rr:constant, rr:termType (IRI/Literal/BlankNode), rr:datatype, rr:language, plus cross-CSV joins and named graphs ([OPUS-5] sq-u1z86, below). Fail-closed: any other rr: construct — rr:sqlQuery, rr:sqlVersion, rr:inverseExpression — is a loud exit-1 error, never a silent skip; SQL-connection R2RML stays a non-goal (sparq's counter-story is materializing import, not virtualization). No datatype inference here (CSV's natural datatype is string, per the spec).
  • Joins (rr:parentTriplesMap + rr:joinCondition/rr:child/rr:parent; [OPUS-5] sq-u1z86): a referencing object map runs as a keyed hash join — the parent CSV is pre-scanned once into a join-key tuple → parent subjects index, then the child table streams past it. Honest cost: that index is the one non-constant-memory part of the pipeline (one key tuple + subject per parent row); the child side still streams. SQL NULL semantics: an empty join cell on either side matches nothing. At least one rr:joinCondition is required — R2RML's condition-free (cross-join) form is a loud error, not a guess.
  • Named graphs (rr:graphMap/rr:graph; [OPUS-5] sq-u1z86): a graph map on the subject map scopes that triples map's class + predicate-object triples, one on a predicate-object map scopes its own, and the two sets union; an empty set (or the rr:defaultGraph constant) is the default graph. A graph map that generates NULL contributes nothing to that union rather than erasing it — a sibling graph map, or the other side of the subject/predicate-object union, still scopes the statement; only when every declared graph map is NULL is the statement unscoped and dropped (never a silent fallback into the default graph). Using any graph map switches the emitter to N-Quads and the load path to Graph::load_dataset, so GRAPH ?g { … } works. Honest cost: the dataset load is whole-document, so the quad load path buffers the generated N-Quads (--out still streams); a graph-map-free mapping keeps the unchanged streaming N-Triples fast path.
  • Row provenance (--row-provenance, both modes; [OPUS-5] sq-u1z86): every generated subject also gets <subject> prov:wasDerivedFrom <base><table>/row/{_row}> — the same row IRI the direct mapping's default subject template produces, emitted into the row's graph(s). With the default direct-mapping template the subject is the row IRI, so the triple is a self-link; it earns its keep under --template / R2RML subjects.
  • Output: default = load the graph and print the summary line; add --query <sparql> (+ --format/--count as in query) to query it in the same shot; or --out <file.nt|.nq[.gz|.zst]> to stream the triples/quads out without building a graph. --sep <char|tab> sets the separator. Usage errors exit 2; data/mapping errors exit 1. Fixture suite: crates/sparq-cli/tests/fixtures/r2rml/ (W3C-R2RML-adapted cases, incl. join/); perf smoke: bench id tabular-import-smoke.
• terse <terse-query | -> (opt-in terse feature; [OPUS-4.8] sq-vczh2) — transpile a terse query (the K:<name> keyword layer over canonical SPARQL) into the canonical, conformant SPARQL it expands to, printing the verifiable JSON contract { "canonical_sparql", "keywords": [{ "keyword", "iri", "legendVersion" }], "resolutions": [], "warnings": [], "legendVersion" } (the SAME shape the server's POST /terse/transpile returns). Pass - to read the query from stdin. It does not execute the query — pipe canonical_sparql into query. The K:<name> legend maps the hot PKG predicates/classes (e.g. K:derivedFrom → <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#wasDerivedFrom>) so an agent need not emit a PREFIX line. Loud-fail, never a silent guess: an unknown K:<name>, a PREFIX K: collision, or non-conformant input (the silent-rewrite canary) exits 2 with a message on stderr. resolutions is always empty in this build — V("phrase") concept resolution needs the crate's vectors feature (a graph-bound resolver + embedder), a future extension, so a V(...) construct exits 2 rather than guessing (caveat sq-26fdp). Off by default; build with --features terse.