[SLI-0127] Import shex-lite expressions from tablular formats

[thewillyhuman]

Introduction

As a proof-of-concept system to later jump to the complete system of shape expressions, it is proposed to implement a system in the compiler itself that is capable of reading shape-lite expressions that are defined in tabular data formats such as excel or csv.

Submitted by: @labra.

Motivation

Most of the time the researchers who are in charge of creating the schemas to validate data use systems based on tabular formats such as excel or csv where they define the schemas that they later want to apply to the instances of their data. However, there is no technology that allows them to automatically change from tabular formats to shape expressions.

Proposed solution

The proposed solution is to create an input interceptor that transforms data from tabular systems to shape expressions. Once in shape expressions, the current compiler can be used to carry out any necessary transformation.

Alternatives considered

The unique alternative considered up to now has been implementing the feature in the original shex project but due to the complexity of it this alternative has not been taken.

[thewillyhuman]

This proposal will be implemented in [SLI-0104] ShEx-Lite 3.0 beta planning (goal: 2020-08).

Congrats 🎉!!

[thewillyhuman]

This is being implemented at https://github.com/weso/hermes.