Make RDF triples (and quads) easily.

triple_easy is a lightweight Ruby gem that provides a single convenient top-level function triplify to insert RDF statements into any RDF::Repository (or other mutable RDF store). It automatically converts plain strings into proper RDF::URI or RDF::Literal objects with sensible datatype guessing.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'triple_easy'

• You can pass URI strings or RDF::Resource objects as S/P/O and it does the most obvious thing.
• In the Object position, for non-URI strings, it does some regexp matching to guess what Literal datatype it should be, and auto-creates that RDF Literal
• If you, for example, explicitly want "http://example.org" in the Object position to be a Literal (string), then you can override the auto-detect (this is useful when facing a dct:identifier property, where the range is a string, even if the string is a URI!)

require 'triple_easy'

repo = RDF::Repository.new

# Basic triple
triplify("http://example.org/alice",
         "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name",
         "Alice Smith",  # string will default to language "en"
         repo)

# With language tag (non-English)
triplify("http://example.org/bob",
         "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name",
         "Bob Schmidt",
         repo,
         language: "de")

# With explicit datatype
triplify("http://example.org/charlie",
         "http://schema.org/age",
         "42",
         repo,
         datatype: RDF::XSD.integer)

# Date and DateTime auto-detection
triplify("http://example.org/diana",
         "http://schema.org/birthDate",
         "1995-06-15",          # → xsd:date
         repo)

triplify("http://example.org/diana",
         "http://schema.org/lastSeen",
         "2025-03-27T14:30:00", # → xsd:dateTime
         repo)

# Quad (with named graph / context)
triplify("http://example.org/eve",
         "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/knows",
         "http://example.org/alice",
         repo,
         context: "http://example.org/my-graph")
         

module Example
   class MyExample
      include TripleEasy     # bring "triplify" into this class
      def initialize
      end
   end
end

• Automatic URI detection for subjects, predicates, and objects
• Smart literal detection:
  • xsd:date and xsd:dateTime
  • xsd:float and xsd:integer
• Language-tagged strings (default: English)
• Optional explicit datatype (takes precedence)
• Support for named graphs (context)
• Returns true on success, false if any required argument is empty
• Raises helpful errors for invalid URIs

Full API documentation is available on rubydoc.info.

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run bundle exec rspec to run the tests.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/markwilkinson/triple-easy.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Developed in the context of the OSTrails project and the FAIR Champion initiative.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe framework programme under grant agreement No. 101130187. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the European Research Executive Agency can be held responsible for them.

Made with ❤️ for the FAIR community