@digitalcredentials/rdf-canonize

rdf-canonize

An implementation of the RDF Dataset Normalization Algorithm in JavaScript.

Introduction

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Installation

Node.js + npm

npm install rdf-canonize

const canonize = require('rdf-canonize');

Node.js + npm + native bindings

This package has support for rdf-canonize-native. This package can be useful if your application requires doing many canonizing operations asyncronously in parallel or in the background. It is highly recommended that you understand your requirements and benchmark using JavaScript vs native bindings. The native bindings add overhead and the JavaScript implementation may be faster with modern runtimes.

The native bindings are not installed by default and must be explicitly installed.

npm install rdf-canonize
npm install rdf-canonize-native

Note that the native code is not automatically used. To use the native bindings you must have them installed and set the useNative option to true.

const canonize = require('rdf-canonize');

Browser + npm

Install in your project with npm and use your favorite browser bundler tool.

Examples

const dataset = {
  // ...
};

// canonize a data set with a particular algorithm with async/await
const canonical = await canonize.canonize(dataset, {algorithm: 'URDNA2015'});

// canonize a data set with a particular algorithm and force use of the
// native implementation
const canonical = await canonize.canonize(dataset, {
  algorithm: 'URDNA2015',
  useNative: true
});

Related Modules

• jsonld.js: An implementation of the JSON-LD specification.

Tests

This library includes a sample testing utility which may be used to verify that changes to the processor maintain the correct output.

The test suite is included in an external repository:

https://github.com/json-ld/normalization

This should be a sibling directory of the rdf-canonize directory or in a test-suites dir. To clone shallow copies into the test-suites dir you can use the following:

npm run fetch-test-suite

Node.js tests can be run with a simple command:

npm test

If you installed the test suites elsewhere, or wish to run other tests, use the TEST_DIR environment var:

TEST_DIR="/tmp/tests" npm test

To generate earl reports:

# generate the earl report for node.js
EARL=earl-node.jsonld npm test

Browser testing with karma is done indirectly through jsonld.js.

Benchmark

See docs in the benchmark README.

Source

The source code for this library is available at:

https://github.com/digitalbazaar/rdf-canonize

Commercial Support

Commercial support for this library is available upon request from Digital Bazaar: [e-mail]

Changelog

1.0.0 - 2019-01-23

Notes

• WARNING: This release has a BREAKING change that could cause the canonical N-Quads output to differ from previous releases. Specifically, tabs in literals are no longer escaped. No backwards compatibility mode is provided at this time but if you believe it is needed, please file an issue.
• If you wish to use the native bindings, you must now install rdf-canonize-native yourself. It is no longer a dependency. See below.

Fixed

• BREAKING: N-Quad canonical serialized output.
  • Only escape 4 chars.
  • Now compatible with https://www.w3.org/TR/n-triples/#canonical-ntriples

Changed

• Improve N-Quads parsing.
  • Unescape literals.
  • Handle Unicode escapes.
• N-Quad serialization optimization.
  • Varies based on input by roughly ~1-2x.
• BREAKING: Remove rdf-canonize-native as a dependency. The native bindings will still be used if rdf-canonize-native can be loaded. This means if you want the native bindings you must install them yourself. This change was done due to various problems caused by having any type of dependency involving the native code. With modern runtimes the JavaScript implementation is in many cases faster. The native bindings do have overhead but can be useful in cases where you need to offload canonizing into the background. It is recommended to perform benchmarks to determine which method works best in your case.
• Update webpack and babel.
• BREAKING: Remove usePureJavaScript option and make the JavaScript implementation the default. Add explicit useNative option to force the use of the native implementation from rdf-canonize-native. An error will be thrown if native bindings are not available.