We always think about new ways to integrate GraphDB into existing environments. And one of those environments our users are working with right now are the several Enterprise Service Busses which are available right now.
One big player in the ESB environment is the Mule Open Source ESB:
“Mule is a lightweight enterprise service bus (ESB) and integration framework. It can handle services and applications using disparate transport and messaging technologies. The platform is Java-based, but can broker interactions between other platforms such as .NET using web services or sockets.
The architecture is a scalable, highly-distributable object broker that can seamlessly handle interactions across legacy systems, in-house applications and almost all modern transports and protocols.”
In order to show how a GraphDB integrates into those typical ESB environments we created a small example.
The architecture of this example is like this:
The idea behind this is that an example Message-WebApp is posting a message to the Mule ESB and then this message gets transformed and in the last consequence consumed by a sones RESTful webservice hosted by a GraphDB.
Not long ago we showed off the new capabilities of GraphDB 2.1 (to be released at the end of 2011) regarding the visualization of data. Now we extended that capabilities and added another Output Plug-In to the Community Edition. It’s called GraphVis.
And you can download it now with our source-code package from our GitHub repository.
The best way to show-off the new functionality is by literally showing it:
A good start for the documentation of the new visualization options is our ever growing wiki.
There is a new example available for all the developers out there who want to start using GraphDB.
This tutorial describes and shows the simplicity of setting up a GraphDB by using the sones GraphDB CommunityEdition. It shows how to create your own database by using the sones GraphDB C# API and how to use GraphDB to create your own graph scheme (in not one but two different approaches).
If you are using the GraphQL please read our GraphQL Cheatsheet there you can find the description of all available statements and some additional examples.
The tutorial itself will show you how to:
create user defined types, add structured properties, add unknown/schemeless properties
create outgoing and incoming edges on a vertex type
create an index on a specified property in 3 different ways
set constraints on properties (like “unique” and “mandatory”)
The PHP Client is the latest communication interface to our GraphDB Database. The library is very easy to use and include in existing projects. Let’s take a short tour of the features of the PHP client:
First of all, visit our github repository at: http://github.com/sones/sones-phpclient.
There, you can download the complete package. Included in the php client is a short example on how to use the library. As part of the sones GraphDB Open Source Edition (OSE) the whole source code is open to test.
The most important class for your project will be GraphDBClient.php, located in ./source/sones/.
The PHP client sets up a connection to a GraphDB REST instance service based on a given URI. Further parameter are the credentials like username and password. Simply include it in your project and create an instance:
$myGrapgDBClient = new GraphDBClient.php($myURI, $myUsername, $myPassword);
After you create an instance you can insert GraphQL queries to your GraphDB with:
$myResult = $myGrapDBClient->InsertQuery(“Create Vertex User Attributes(String Name)”);
This method returns a QueryResult value which contains the response of the Database in a parsed form. The API handles vertices, edges and some Meta data.
$myVertices = $myResult->getVertices();
Of course in order to have a representation of existing systems you create one instance for each GraphDB.
You can take a look at the Demo Example, which shows some usage of the library. If you want to test the PHP Client, you’ll need a Database. I recommend the Open Source Edition (OSE) of the GraphDB, located also at github. The Demo Example uses the OSE, too. Because of that the default parameters for the connection are already set. The output of the Demo Example is split in two. On the one hand is the parsed output of the database, and on the other the source code which was executed. There is just one additional class which generates the visualized output of the GraphDB.
Important: If you want to use the DemoExample you have to set “max_execution_time” to false (max_execution_time = false) in the php.ini. DemoExample inserts many GraphQL statements to the GraphDB at the beginning in order to store some data. This progress takes a while and overstepped my maximum execution time and ended with an error. There are also some warnings about the ‘include_once’ of some intern classes.
There is some adapted functionality, which could not be implemented truthfully, because of the weak typing discipline. There are also some missing features in the initial release, traverse methods, for example. Have a try!.
Alex Popescu, author of the well-known MyNoSQL blog recently wrote about a very (very) basic tagging app and its implementation within the InfoGrid and Neo4j graph database systems.
Today we want to pick up the given example and show you an implementation using the sones GraphDB and the GraphDBSharp API:
using System; using System.Linq; using System.Collections.Generic; using sones.GraphDB; using sones.GraphDB.Structures; using sones.GraphDB.API.CSharp; using sones.GraphDB.API.CSharp.Reflection; using sones.GraphDB.Connectors.GraphDBREST; using sones.GraphFS.Connectors.GraphFSCLI; using sones.GraphDB.Connectors.GraphDBCLI; namespace TagExample { public class Tag : DBObject { // Will inherit an UUID and RevisionID property from DBObject [CreateIndex(DBIndexTypes.HashTable)] public String Name { get; set; } // Backwardedges to the attribute Tags of type Websites [BackwardEdge("Tags")] public List TaggedWebsites { get; set; } public Tag() { } } public class Website : DBObject { // Will inherit an UUID and RevisionID property from DBObject [CreateIndex(DBIndexTypes.HashTable)] public String Name { get; set; } public String URL { get; set; } // Edges to the tags public List Tags { get; set; } public Website() { } } public class TagExample { private void CheckResult(QueryResult myQueryResult) { Console.WriteLine("{0} => {1}", myQueryResult.Query, myQueryResult.ResultType); } private void Run() { // Create a new in-memory database var GDB = new GraphDBSharp() { DatabaseName = "TagExampleDB", Username = "Dr.Falken", Password = "Joshua" // For persistence use: //StorageLocation = "file://TagExampleDB.fs", //StorageLocation = "net.tcp://127.0.0.1:8000", }; GDB.CreateDatabase(true); // Create types tag and website using reflection GDB.CreateTypes(CheckResult, new Tag(), new Website()); // Insert tags var _good = new Tag() { Name = "good" }; var _funny = new Tag() { Name = "funny" }; GDB.Insert(CheckResult, _good, _funny); // Insert websites and link them to their tags var _cnn = new Website() { Name = "CNN", URL = "http://cnn.com/", Tags = new List() { _good } }; var _xkcd = new Website() { Name = "xkcd", URL = "http://xkcd.com/", Tags = new List() { _good, _funny } }; var _onion = new Website() { Name = "onion", URL = "http://theonion.com/", Tags = new List() { _funny } }; GDB.Insert(CheckResult, _cnn, _xkcd, _onion); // Find out which tags xkcd is tagged with var _xkcdtags = GDB.Query("FROM Website w SELECT w.Tags " + "WHERE w.Name = 'xkcd' DEPTH 1"); foreach (var _tag in (List) _xkcdtags["Tags"]) Console.WriteLine(_tag["Name"]); // List tagged sites var _taggedsites = GDB.Query("FROM Website w SELECT w.Name, " + "Count(w.Tags) AS Counter " + "WHERE Count(w.Tags)>0"); foreach (var _sites in (List) _taggedsites[0]) Console.WriteLine("{0} => {1}", _sites["Name"], _sites["Counter"]); // Start a REST service on localhost port 9975 GDB.StartREST(new Uri("http://localhost:9975")); // Start the GraphDB command line interface GDB.OpenCLI(typeof(ABasicFSCLICommands), typeof(AAdvancedFSCLICommands), typeof(ABasicDBCLICommands), typeof(AAdvancedDBCLICommands)); GDB.Shutdown(); } public static void Main(string[] myArgs) { var w = new TagExample(); w.Run(); } } }
The current C# API is already very expressive, but other programming languages might be much more verbose. To avoid writing a lot of code, you can always use our Graph Query Lanuage (GraphQL) which is an optimized Domain-specific language (DSL) for creating and manipulating a graph within our database.
CREATE TYPES Tag EXTENDS DBObject ATTRIBUTES (String Name) BACKWARDEDGES (Website.Tags TaggedWebsites) INDICES (Name), Website EXTENDS DBObject ATTRIBUTES (String Name, String URL, LIST Tags) INDICES (Name) INSERT INTO Tag VALUES (Name = 'good') INSERT INTO Tag VALUES (Name = 'funny') INSERT INTO Website VALUES (Name = 'CNN', URL = 'http://cnn.com/', Tags = SETOF (Name = 'good')) INSERT INTO Website VALUES (Name = 'xkcd', URL = 'http://xkcd.com/', Tags = SETOF (Name = 'good', Name = 'funny')) INSERT INTO Website VALUES (Name = 'onion', URL = 'http://theonion.com/', Tags = SETOF (Name = 'funny')) // Find out which tags xkcd is tagged with... FROM Website w SELECT w.Tags WHERE w.Name = 'xkcd' DEPTH 1 // Alternative query... FROM Tag t SELECT t.Name WHERE t.TaggedWebsites.Name = 'xkcd' // List tagged sites... FROM Website w SELECT w.Name, Count(w.Tags) AS Counter WHERE Count(w.Tags)>0
For an easier access to any sones GraphDB instance you can use the our new web based shell. It is based on well-known technologies and libraries like HTML, JavaScript, JQuery and our RESTAPI. You can choose between a text-based output format like shown in the following screen shot, a XML output format or a JSON output format.
The WebShell ist Open Source Software and licensed under the New BSD License.
To get access to your own personal test instance go to the sones homepage and register a new account. When you’re logged in you’re only one click away from accessing the sones graphDB WebShell. You can log in using the given URL and the username and password.
