Introduction

``BASIL is designed as middleware system that mediates between SPARQL endpoints and applications.

Data providers focus on maintenance and evolution of their SPARQL endpoints and the data provided. Data consumers use tailored Web APIs to access the data.

An API specification defines: a data source, and the portion of data to be returned by the API, and the input parameters. SPARQL is the formalisms used to specify input parameters and output data of a single API (see (SPARQL variable name convention for Web API parameters mapping)[https://github.com/the-open-university/basil/wiki/SPARQL-variable-name-convention-for-WEB-API-parameters-mapping] ). Queries are stored in the BASIL middleware. Each time an API is consumed, its query is executed on the related endpoint, then the query result is returned.

In addition, it is possible to specify (views)[Views] for each Web API. A view is an alternative presentation of an API results based on a template or script1. In a concrete scenario, the Web API tailor can be a member of the data provider organisation that builds APIs for data consumers, which are not SPARQL experienced, or a data consumer who has SPARQL knowledge and prefers to benefit of the advantages of Web APIs.

Continue to Example scenario.

Public endpoint

Basil is online as a public service at http://basil.kmi.open.ac.uk.