A profile hierarchy-based RDF graph validation tool written in Python

1. Installation
2. Use
3. Testing
4. License
5. Citation
6. Contacts

This tool validates a data graph against a set of SHACL shape graphs that it extracts from a hierarchy of Profiles (Standards/Specifications and/or profiles of them). It uses conformance claims in the data graph to a Profile to collate and then use all the validator SHACL files within the hierarchy of other Profiles and Standards to which that Profile profiles.

Cheka uses Profiles Vocabulary (PROF) descriptions of Profiles and Standards and both traverses up a Profile hierarchy (following prof:isProfileOf properties) and across from prof:Profiless to prof:ResourceDescriptors that describe the constraints implemented for them. These constraints are currently limited to Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) files and must have the prof:Role of role:validation to be recognised by Cheka. The pySHACL Python SHACL validator is used to perform SHACL validation.

1. Ensure Python 3 in available on your system
2. Clone this repo
3. Install requirements in requirements.txt, e.g. ~$ pip3 install -r requirements.txt
4. Execute scripts as per Use below

To use Cheka, you must supply it with both a data graph to be validated and a profiles hierarchy. It will then use conformance claims in the data graph to validate objects within it using validating resources it locates using the profiles hierarchy.

You may supply it with a couple of other flags too for other functions.

The command line argumens (Python & BASH) are:

This must be an RDF file with the part(s) to be validated indicating their conformance to a profile as per the Profiles Vocabulary.

Typically this will look like this:

@prefix dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .

<Object_X>
    a <Class_Y> ;
    dct:conformsTo <Profile_Z> ;
    ...

This says that <Object_X> is meant to conform to <Profile_Z>.

See the tests/ folder for example data graphs.

This must also be an RDF file that contains a hierarchy of prof:Profile objects (including dct:Standard objects) that are related to one another via the prof:isProfileOf property and each of which has a validating resource indicated by relating it to a prof:Profile via a prof:ResourceDescriptor like this:

@prefix dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix prof: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dx/prof/> .
@prefix role:  <http://www.w3.org/ns/dx/prof/role/> .


<Standard_A>
    a dct:Standard ;
    prof:hasResource [
        a prof:ResourceDescriptor ;
        prof:hasRole role:validation ;
        prof:hasArtifact <File_or_Uri_J> ;
    ]
.

<Profile_B>
    a prof:Profile ;
    prof:isProfileOf <Standard_A> ;
    prof:hasResource <Resource_Descriptor_P> ;
.   

<Resource_Descriptor_P>
    a prof:ResourceDescriptor ;
    prof:hasRole role:validation ;
    prof:hasArtifact <File_or_Uri_K> ;
.

<Profile_C>
    a prof:Profile ; 
    prof:isProfileOf <Profile_B> ;    
    prof:hasResource [
        a prof:ResourceDescriptor ;
        prof:hasRole role:validation ;
        prof:hasArtifact <File_or_Uri_L> ;
    ] ;
.

This says <Profile_C> is a profile of <Profile_B> which is, in turn, a profile of <Standard_A>. The two profiles and the standard have resources <File_or_Uri_J>, <File_or_Uri_K> & <File_or_Uri_L> respectively which are indicated to be validators by the prof:ResourceDescriptor classes that associate them with their profiles/standard.

See the tests/ folder for example profiles graphs.

Cheka uses the profiles graph to find all the SHACL validators it needs to validate a data graph. It returns a pySHACL result with an additional element - the URI of the profile used for validation: [conforms, results_graph, results_text, profile_uri]. conforms is either True or False.

~$ python3 cli.py -d DATA-GRAPH-FILE -p PROFILES-GRAPH-FILE

(and potentially other optional args)

If you make the cli.py script executable (sudo chmod a+x cli.py) then you can run it like this:

~$ ./cli.py -d DATA-GRAPH-FILE -p PROFILES-GRAPH-FILE

The file cheka in the bin/ directory is a BASH shell script that calls cli.py. Make it executable (sudo chmod a+x cheka) then you can run it like this:

~$ ./cheka -d DATA-GRAPH-FILE -p PROFILES-GRAPH-FILE

(and potentially other optional args)

coming!

Tests are included in the tests/ directory. They use pytest should be able to be run from the command line. They have no dependencies, other than pytest and Cheka itself.

Tests are annotated with what they are testing.

This code is licensed using the GPL v3 licence. See the LICENSE file for the deed.

Note Citation below for attribution.

To cite this software, please use the following BibTex:

@software{10.5281/zenodo.3676330,
  author = {{Nicholas J. Car}},
  title = {Cheka: A profile hierarchy-based RDF graph validation tool written in Python},
  version = {0.5},
  date = {2020},
  publisher = "SURROUND Australia Pty. Ltd.",
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.3676330},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3676330}
}

Or the following RDF:

@prefix dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix sdo: <https://schema.org/> .
@prefix wiki: <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

<https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3676330>
    a sdo:SoftwareSourceCode , owl:NamedIndividual ;
    sdo:codeRepository <https://github.com/surroundaustralia/cheka> ;
    dcterms:type wiki:Q7397 ; # "software"
    dcterms:creator "Nicholas J. Car" ;
    dcterms:date "2020"^^xsd:gYear ;
    dcterms:title "Cheka: A profile hierarchy-based RDF graph validation tool written in Python" ;
    sdo:version "0.5" ;
    dcterms:publisher [
        a sdo:Organization ;
        sdo:name "SURROUND Pty Ltd" ;
        sdo:url <https://surroundaustralia.com> ;
    ]
.

publisher:

SURROUND Australia Pty. Ltd.
https://surroundaustralia.com

creator:
Nicholas J. Car
Data Systems Architect
SURROUND Australia Pty. Ltd.
[email protected]