TerminusDB

 ( Official Website ) 

TerminusDB is an open source knowledge graph and document store. It is used to build versioned data products. It is a native Version control database that is architecturally similar to Git. It is listed on DB-Engines.

TerminusDB provides a document API for building via the JSON exchange format. It implements both GraphQL and a datalog variant called WOQL. is a cloud self-serve content and data platform built on TerminusDB.

TerminusDB is available under the Apache License license. TerminusDB is implemented in Prolog and Rust.

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History TerminusDB was founded in Dublin, Ireland. Starting in Trinity College Dublin, the development team behind TerminusDB ran the Horizon 2020 project ALIGNED that worked from February 2015 to January 2018. An Open access e-book entitled Engineering Agile Big-Data Systems was published on completion of the ALIGNED project.

(2018). 9788770220163, River Publishers. . ISBN 9788770220163

Version 1.0 was released in October 2019. TerminusDB was first released under the GPLv3 license with the client libraries released with the Apache License license. With v4.0, which was released in December 2020, TerminusDB switched to the Apache 2.0 license. The shift was discussed extensively.

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Release history

+ TerminusDB release history
1.0	October 2019	first server release with HDT backend
1.1	January 2020	instance and schema checking
2.0	June 2020	Rust based storage backend Delta encoding Commit Graph Time-travel on databases Regular path queries
3.0	September 2020	Added reverse path queries Non-backtracking side-effect Reset API allows resetting branch to arbitrary commit Squash API operation now available Default branch is now called main and not master
4.0	December 2020	CSV support Automatic CSV schema generation Extraction or filtering of types from arbitrary nodes New CLI interface Graphical Model Building Tool
4.1	December 2020	Multiple witness flag Add deb repo
4.2	February 2021	Delta rollups for optimize Large data transfers over TUS protocol Document interface with CRUD actions New frame for adding class choices New branch management actions: squash, reset, delete, optimize
10.0	September 2021	JSON schema interface Radically simplified document interface JSON documents can refer to other documents in the graph.
11.0	January 2023	New TerminusDB dashboard GraphQL Integration New storage backend introduces a layer archive format reducing storage use and latency and simplifying interchange Added typed storage for a wide variety of XSD types, reducing storage overhead and improving search performance
11.0	June 2023	VectorLink sidecar vector database launched Vector sidecar that integrates with TerminusDB or can be used independently

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Name TerminusDB is named after the Roman mythology of Boundaries, Terminus. It is also named after the home planet of the Foundation in the series of science-fiction novel by Isaac Asimov.

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Software design TerminusDB is an in-memory graph database management system with a rich query language. The design of the underlying data structure, which is implemented in a Rust library, uses a succinct data structures and delta encoding approach drawing inspiration from software source control systems like Git. This allows Git semantics to be used in TerminusDB.

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Data model TerminusDB is based on the RDF standard. This standard specifies finite labelled which are parameterized in some universe of Data type. The names for nodes and labels are drawn from a set of IRIs (Internationalized Resource Identifiers). TerminusDB uses the XSD datatypes as its universe of concrete values. For Schematic design, TerminusDB used the OWL language until version 10.0. Since version 10 it uses a JSON schema interface allowing users to build schemas using a simple JSON format. This provides a rich modelling language which enables constraints on the allowable shapes in the graph.

TerminusDB has a promise based client for the Web browser and node.js it is available through the npm registry, or can be directly included in web-sites. It also has a Python client for the TerminusDB RESTful API and a python version of the web object query language, WOQLpy.

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Query language GraphQL is implemented to allow users to query TerminusDB projects in such a way that deep linking can be discovered.

WOQL (web object query language) is a datalog-based query language. It allows TerminusDB to treat the database as a document store or a graph interchangeably, and provides query features to make relationship traversals easy. This gives a relatively straightforward human-readable format which can be easily stored in TerminusDB itself.

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Example A simple query which creates a document in the database, along with labels and cardinality constraints.

WOQL.doctype("BankAccount").label("Bank Account")

   .property("owner","xsd:string")
      .label("owner")
      .cardinality(1)
   .property("balance","xsd:nonNegativeInteger")
      .label("owner")
      .cardinality(1)
     

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External links

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