GQL parser

A GQL parser built with ANTLR v4. This parser is built to support my internship research at University of Technology Eindhoven (TU/e). If you are interested in the report as well, you can find it here.

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Executing queries

Open the project in your favorite IDE (I use IntelliJ) and make sure you have Maven installed. Build the project from the command line by going to the GQL-parser folder. Run mvn clean install. If test cases fail (I have seen some cross platform errors), you can try mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip=true. Now there are two ways to execute the program, the first allows you to run queries from the src/test/resources/queries folder, the second allows you to type the query in your terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows).

• mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="GqlApp" -e -Dexec.args="/gql/tests/conjunctions/union_all.gql"
  • Executes the query found in the union_all.gql file
• mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="GqlApp" -e -Dexec.args="-q"
  • Asks the user for a query and executes it when execute is entered. This process is continued until Ctrl+c is entered.

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Queries

In the folder src/test/resources/queries/gql you can find example queries from the report and test queries which show the syntax of GQL in some detail.

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Algebra output

Besides the normal query output, it is also possible to obtain a algebraic formalization of the given query. This algebra is formalized by me and can be found in A Semantics of GQL; a New Query Language for Property Graphs Formalized and a example can be found in the final presentation of my internship.

For both execution methods you must add the flag -a to -Dexec.args at the end. The algebra output can be found in the console. In order to see the formalization, copy the printed output (starting with "\begin{align*}" and ending with "\end{align*}") to Algebra template.tex in the document section. Additionally, you must use a Latex compiler (such as Overleaf) to render a PDF with the algebra.

An example output with algebra can be obtained with the following command:

• mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="GqlApp" -e -Dexec.args="/gql/tests/conjunctions/union_all.gql" -a
  • Executes the query found in the union_all.gql file
  • Output the formal algebra of the query found in the union_all.gql file

Generating the formalization of each query that is given by the user can be done by the following command:

• mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="GqlApp" -e -Dexec.args="-q -a"
  • Asks the user for a query and executes the query and outputs the algebra when execute is entered. This process is continued until Ctrl+c is entered.

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Data

Queries are executed on property graphs. In this project multiple property graphs are given via .json files. All graphs in src/main/resources/database come from my report and contain valid data. All graphs in src/test/resources/database contains test graphs which are not valid, except for syntheticGraph.

Valid graphs

• g
• g1
• g2
• g3
• syntheticGraph (test graph)

Providing your own data

If you want to provide your own data to the parser, create a new folder in src/main/resources/database where the folder name will be the reference name of the graph. All graphs contain two files, one file called nodes.json containing nodes with labels and properties, and one file called edges.json containing edges with an id, start node, end node, labels, properties and flag if they are directed. Graph g3 is the most complete example of a valid graph. Below I describe how certain data types are parsed and what rules you must follow to obtain a valid graph.

Data types

• Truth values (TRUE, FALSE, UNKNOWN, NULL) are parsed as a case insensitive string
• Integers and decimals are parsed as their given input (a string containing a number is parsed as string)
• Floating points must be of the form (-)?[1-9][0-9]*[eE][0-9]* (again not in a string)
• Strings are parsed as strings in Java
• Identifiers must be strings starting with a letter from the alphabet

Rules

• Minimal node object

"n": {
  "identity": "someIdentity"
}

• Nodes can have labels and/or properties
• Minimal edge object

"e": {
  "identity": "someIdentity", 
  "start": "existingNodeIdentifier",
  "end": "existingNodeIdentifier"
}

• Edges can have labels and/or properties
• Edges can have a field isDirected which can be set to 0 (undirected) or 1 (directed), by default an edge is directed

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Writings

For a more in depth review of the proposed semantics, one can read my internship report or look at my final presentation.

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Contact

If you have any feedback, questions or extensions to my work, you can contact me via the following mail address: [email protected]