Search code examples
sparql

What does SPARQL "a" predicate do?

In this little snippet, what does the a in the second line do? 

CONSTRUCT {  
  ?uri a skos:Concept ;  
         skos:prefLabel ?prefLabel ;

I'm sure this question already has an answer but I just couldn't find it. Sorry. (Whoever thought a single-character query language operator that's also an indefinite article in English was a good idea?)

Solution

  • The SPARQL keyword a is a shortcut for the common predicate rdf:type, giving the class of a resource.

    From here, found by googling 'SPARQL a keyword predicate'. Thanks to Stanislav Kralin.