SPANG: A Command-line Client Supporting Query Generation for Distributed SPARQL Endpoints

An increasing number of biological databases have been made available in the form of RDF that are accessible through SPARQL endpoints. These endpoints offer a valuable opportunity to utilize the RDF datasets as integrative databases. However, writing a SPARQL query often becomes a burden for biologists; thus, an easy-to-use querying tool for the SPARQL endpoints is necessary. Here, we developed SPANG, a command-line SPARQL client supporting query generation. SPANG can dynamically generate typical SPARQL queries according to the commandline arguments. SPANG can also use SPARQL templates existing in local system or on the Web. Further, SPANG allows a user to combine multiple queries, each with distinct target endpoints, via Unix pipe. These features enable easy access to RDF datasets through SPARQL endpoints, and enhance the integrative analysis of various biological data distributed across the Web. SPANG is freely available from http://purl.org/net/spang.