A true virtual graph for Excel and CSV hosted remotely

Support Feature Request
1

I know one can do virtual graph import of CSV - which really does not produce a virtual graph but rather a materialized graph.

What if Excel and CSV files are maintained by domain experts and available on some file content repository? Instead of downloading and re-importing it every time:

  • Can Stardog leverage an ODBC driver for a given Excel or CSV and create a truly virtual graph representation of an Excel or CSV subset?

Thanks,
Radu

2

Hey Radu,

We have contemplated implementing something like this but have no immediate plans to do it. Perhaps you can setup a script to load the CSV into Stardog at a regular interval?

Jess

3

Jess,

Thanks for your reply. Yes such old approach - cron enabled pull script - can be used. It will require custom E(TL) code to be developed - which I tried to avoid by using virtual/material graph import from Excel and or CSV. I bet the generic E part is already done by some open source tools. That involves:

  1. Periodically checking if the file changed
  2. Finding delta
  3. Loading delta per SMS2 mapping

As much as we would like not to be the case - Business Users are in love with Excel.

Looking forward to when this feature will be on Stardog roadmap.

Regards,
Radu

4

Radu,
How do you suppose a "true" virtual graph would be any better here? It's required to scan the whole file to compute changes. It's easier to just reload the whole thing at this point.
Jess

5

Jess,

This should provide a good enough abstraction layer Excel JDBC Driver: JDBC Driver for Excel - CData Software

I suppose you already can do virtual graph against MS SQL Server so it shouldn't be that different ... I hope. I haven't tried though...

Regards,
Radu

6

Sure, you can create a virtual graph using this JDBC driver. Let us know if you need any help customizing the settings.