How can you remove the XML schema datattype from sparql query?

Question

Im running a sparql query on a file that contains

<User rdf:about="#RJ">
<hasName rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string">RJ</hasName>
</User>

I want to return only the name i.e. 'RJ' but when i enter my query

SELECT ?name
FROM <example.com> 
WHERE { 
       assign:RJ assign:hasName ?name .   
}  

where assign is the correct namespace i return this :

"RJ" ^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>

does anyone have any advice on how to remove the xml schema type for a sparql noob?

thanks in advance

Answer 1

Whether you can do this depends on the SPARQL implementation you are using. Under SPARQL 1.0 this isn't possible, however with SPARQL 1.1 which is now widely supported by most implementations having become a W3C recommendation in March 2013 you can use Project Expressions as follows:

SELECT (STR(?name) AS ?StringName)
FROM <example.com>
WHERE {
    assign:RJ assign:hasName ?name
}

Basically a project expression allows you to use any valid SPARQL expression which you could use elsewhere to calculate a new value based on the variables which are previously bound.