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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>JSON-LD 1.1</title>
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// the specification's short name, as in http://www.w3.org/TR/short-name/
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subtitle: "A JSON-based Serialization for Linked Data",
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<body>
<section id="abstract">
<p>JSON is a useful data serialization and messaging format.
This specification defines JSON-LD, a JSON-based format to serialize
Linked Data. The syntax is designed to easily integrate into deployed
systems that already use JSON, and provides a smooth upgrade path from
JSON to JSON-LD.
It is primarily intended to be a way to use Linked Data in Web-based
programming environments, to build interoperable Web services, and to
store Linked Data in JSON-based storage engines.</p>
</section>
<section id="sotd">
<p>This document has been developed by the
<a href="https://www.w3.org/2018/json-ld-wg/">JSON-LD Working Group</a> and was derived from the <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/json-ld/">JSON-LD Community Group's</a> <a href="https://www.w3.org/2018/jsonld-cg-reports/json-ld/">Final Report</a>.</p>
<p>There is a
<a href="https://json-ld.org/playground/">live JSON-LD playground</a> that is capable
of demonstrating the features described in this document.</p>
<section>
<h2>Set of Documents</h2>
<p>This document is one of three JSON-LD 1.1 Recommendations produced by the
<a href="https://www.w3.org/2018/json-ld-wg/">JSON-LD Working Group</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a data-cite="JSON-LD11">JSON-LD 1.1</a></li>
<li><a data-cite="JSON-LD11-API">JSON-LD 1.1 Processing Algorithms and API</a></li>
<li><a data-cite="JSON-LD11-FRAMING">JSON-LD 1.1 Framing</a></li>
</ul>
</section>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h1>Introduction</h1>
<p>Linked Data [[LINKED-DATA]] is a way to create a network of
standards-based machine interpretable data across different documents and
Web sites. It allows an application to start at one piece of Linked Data,
and follow embedded links to other pieces of Linked Data that are hosted on
different sites across the Web.</p>
<p>JSON-LD is a lightweight syntax to serialize Linked Data in
JSON [[!RFC8259]]. Its design allows existing JSON to be interpreted as
Linked Data with minimal changes. JSON-LD is primarily intended to be a
way to use Linked Data in Web-based programming environments, to build
interoperable Web services, and to store Linked Data in JSON-based storage engines. Since
JSON-LD is 100% compatible with JSON, the large number of JSON parsers and libraries
available today can be reused. In addition to all the features JSON provides,
JSON-LD introduces:</p>
<ul>
<li>a universal identifier mechanism for <a>JSON objects</a>
via the use of <a>IRIs</a>,</li>
<li>a way to disambiguate keys shared among different JSON documents by mapping
them to <a>IRIs</a> via a <a>context</a>,</li>
<li>a mechanism in which a value in a <a>JSON object</a> may refer
to a <a>resource</a> on a different site on the Web,</li>
<li>the ability to annotate <a>strings</a> with their language,</li>
<li>a way to associate datatypes with values such as dates and times,</li>
<li>and a facility to express one or more directed graphs, such as a social
network, in a single document.</li>
</ul>
<p>
JSON-LD is designed to be usable directly as JSON, with no knowledge of RDF
[[RDF11-CONCEPTS]]. It is also designed to be usable as RDF, if desired, for
use with other Linked Data technologies like SPARQL. Developers who
require any of the facilities listed above or need to serialize an RDF <a>Graph</a>
or <a>Dataset</a> in a JSON-based syntax will find JSON-LD of interest. People
intending to use JSON-LD with RDF tools will find it can be used as another
RDF syntax, like Turtle [[TURTLE]]. Complete details of how JSON-LD relates
to RDF are in section <a href="#relationship-to-rdf"></a>.
</p>
<p>
The syntax is designed to not disturb already
deployed systems running on JSON, but provide a smooth upgrade path from
JSON to JSON-LD. Since the shape of such data varies wildly, JSON-LD
features mechanisms to reshape documents into a deterministic structure
which simplifies their processing.</p>
<section class="informative">
<h2>How to Read this Document</h2>
<p>This document is a detailed specification for a serialization of Linked
Data in JSON. The document is primarily intended for the following audiences:</p>
<ul>
<li>Software developers who want to encode Linked Data in a variety of
programming languages that can use JSON</li>
<li>Software developers who want to convert existing JSON to JSON-LD</li>
<li>Software developers who want to understand the design decisions and
language syntax for JSON-LD</li>
<li>Software developers who want to implement processors and APIs for
JSON-LD</li>
<li>Software developers who want to generate or consume Linked Data,
an RDF <a>graph</a>, or an <a>RDF Dataset</a> in a JSON syntax</li>
</ul>
<p>A companion document, the JSON-LD 1.1 Processing Algorithms and API specification
[[JSON-LD11-API]], specifies how to work with JSON-LD at a higher level by
providing a standard library interface for common JSON-LD operations.</p>
<p>To understand the basics in this specification you must first be familiar with
<a data-cite="RFC8259">JSON</a>, which is detailed in [[!RFC8259]].</p>
<p>This document almost exclusively uses the term IRI
(<a data-cite="ld-glossary#internationalized-resource-identifier">Internationalized Resource Indicator</a>)
when discussing hyperlinks. Many Web developers are more familiar with the
URL (<a data-cite="ld-glossary#uniform-resource-locator">Uniform Resource Locator</a>)
terminology. The document also uses, albeit rarely, the URI
(<a data-cite="ld-glossary#uniform-resource-identifier">Uniform Resource Indicator</a>)
terminology. While these terms are often used interchangeably among
technical communities, they do have important distinctions from one
another and the specification goes to great lengths to try and use the
proper terminology at all times.
</p>
</section>
<section>
<h2>Contributing</h2>
<p>There are a number of ways that one may participate in the development of
this specification:</p>
<ul>
<li>Technical discussion typically occurs on the working group mailing list:
<a href="https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-json-ld-wg/">public-json-ld-wg@w3.org</a></li>
<li>The working group uses <a href="http://irc.w3.org/?channels=json-ld">#json-ld</a>
IRC channel is available for real-time discussion on <a href="http://irc.w3.org">irc.w3.org</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=json-ld">#json-ld</a>
IRC channel is also available for real-time discussion on irc.freenode.net.</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section>
<h2>Typographical conventions</h2>
<div data-include="common/typographical-conventions.html"></div>
</section>
<section class="normative">
<h2>Terminology</h2>
<p>This document uses the following terms as defined in JSON [[!RFC8259]]. Refer
to the <a data-cite="RFC8259#section-2">JSON Grammar section</a> in [[!RFC8259]] for formal definitions.</p>
<div data-include="common/terms.html"
data-oninclude="restrictReferences">
</div>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h2>Design Goals and Rationale</h2>
<p>JSON-LD satisfies the following design goals:</p>
<dl>
<dt>Simplicity</dt>
<dd>No extra processors or software libraries are necessary to use JSON-LD
in its most basic form. The language provides developers with a very easy
learning curve. Developers only need to know JSON and two
<a>keywords</a> (<code>@context</code>
and <code>@id</code>) to use the basic functionality in JSON-LD.</dd>
<dt>Compatibility</dt>
<dd>A JSON-LD document is always a valid JSON document. This ensures that
all of the standard JSON libraries work seamlessly with JSON-LD documents.</dd>
<dt>Expressiveness</dt>
<dd>The syntax serializes directed graphs. This ensures that almost
every real world data model can be expressed.</dd>
<dt>Terseness</dt>
<dd>The JSON-LD syntax is very terse and human readable, requiring as
little effort as possible from the developer.</dd>
<dt>Zero Edits, most of the time</dt>
<dd>JSON-LD ensures a smooth and simple transition from existing
JSON-based systems. In many cases,
zero edits to the JSON document and the addition of one line to the HTTP response
should suffice (see <a class="sectionRef" href="#interpreting-json-as-json-ld"></a>).
This allows organizations that have
already deployed large JSON-based infrastructure to use JSON-LD's features
in a way that is not disruptive to their day-to-day operations and is
transparent to their current customers. However, there are times where
mapping JSON to a graph representation is a complex undertaking.
In these instances, rather than extending JSON-LD to support
esoteric use cases, we chose not to support the use case. While Zero
Edits is a design goal, it is not always possible without adding
great complexity to the language. JSON-LD focuses on simplicity when
possible.</dd>
<dt>Usable as RDF</dt>
<dd>JSON-LD is usable by developers as
idiomatic JSON, with no need to understand RDF [[RDF11-CONCEPTS]].
JSON-LD is also usable as RDF, so people intending to use JSON-LD
with RDF tools will find it can be used like any other RDF syntax.
Complete details of how JSON-LD relates to RDF are in section
<a href="#relationship-to-rdf"></a>.</dd>
</dl>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h2>Data Model Overview</h2>
<p>Generally speaking, the data model described by a
<a>JSON-LD document</a> is a labeled,
directed <a>graph</a>. The graph contains
<a>nodes</a>, which are connected by
<a>edges</a>. A <a>node</a> is typically data
such as a <a>string</a>, <a>number</a>,
<a>typed values</a> (like dates and times)
or an <a>IRI</a>.</p>
<p class="changed">Within a directed graph, nodes with may
be <em>unnamed</em>, i.e., not identified by an <a>IRI</a> or representing
data such as <a>strings</a> or <a>numbers</a>. Such nodes are called <a>blank nodes</a>,
and may be identified using a <a>blank node identifier</a>.
These identifiers may be required to represent a fully connected graph
using a tree structure, such as JSON, but otherwise have no
intrinsic meaning.</p>
<p>This simple data model is incredibly
flexible and powerful, capable of modeling almost any kind of
data. For a deeper explanation of the data model, see
section <a href="#data-model"></a>.</p>
<p>Developers who are familiar with Linked Data technologies will
recognize the data model as the RDF Data Model. To dive deeper into how
JSON-LD and RDF are related, see
section <a href="#relationship-to-rdf"></a>.</p>
<p>At the surface level, a <a>JSON-LD document</a> is simply
<a data-cite="RFC8259">JSON</a>, detailed in [[!RFC8259]].
For the purpose of describing the core data structures,
this is limited to <a>arrays</a>, <a>dictionaries</a> (the parsed version of a <a>JSON Object</a>),
<a>strings</a>, <a>numbers</a>, <a>booleans</a>, and <a>null</a>,
<span class="changed">called the <a>JSON-LD internal representation</a>.
This allows surface syntaxes other than JSON
to be manipulated using the same algorithms, when the syntax maps
to equivalent core data structures</span>.</p>
<p class="changed note">Although not discussed in this specification,
parallel work using <a data-cite="YAML">YAML</a> [[YAML]]
and binary representations such as <a data-cite="RFC7049">CBOR</a> [[RFC7049]]
could be used to map into the <a>internal representation</a>, allowing
the JSON-LD 1.1 API [[JSON-LD11-API]] to operate as if the source was a
JSON document.</p>
</section>
<section class="normative">
<h2>Syntax Tokens and Keywords</h2>
<p>JSON-LD specifies a number of syntax tokens and <a>keywords</a>
that are a core part of the language:</p>
<dl data-sort>
<dt><code>@context</code></dt>
<dd>Used to define the short-hand names that are used throughout a JSON-LD
document. These short-hand names are called <a>terms</a> and help
developers to express specific identifiers in a compact manner. The
<code>@context</code> keyword is described in detail in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#the-context"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@id</code></dt>
<dd>Used to uniquely identify <a>node objects</a> that are being described in the document
with <a>IRIs</a> or
<a>blank node identifiers</a>. This keyword
is described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#node-identifiers"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@value</code></dt>
<dd>Used to specify the data that is associated with a particular
<a>property</a> in the graph. This keyword is described in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#string-internationalization"></a> and
<a class="sectionRef" href="#typed-values"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@language</code></dt>
<dd>Used to specify the language for a particular string value or the default
language of a JSON-LD document. This keyword is described in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#string-internationalization"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@type</code></dt>
<dd>Used to set the data type of a <a>node</a> or
<a>typed value</a>. This keyword is described in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#typed-values"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@container</code></dt>
<dd>Used to set the default container type for a <a>term</a>.
This keyword is described in the following sections:
<ul>
<li><a class="sectionRef" href="#sets-and-lists"></a>,</li>
<li><a class="sectionRef" href="#data-indexing"></a>,</li>
<li><a class="sectionRef" href="#language-indexing"></a>,</li>
<li class="changed"><a class="sectionRef" href="#node-identifier-indexing"></a>,</li>
<li class="changed"><a class="sectionRef" href="#node-type-indexing"></a></li>
<li class="changed"><a class="sectionRef" href="#named-graphs"></a>,</li>
<li class="changed"><a class="sectionRef" href="#named-graph-indexing"></a>, and</li>
<li class="changed"><a class="sectionRef" href="#named-graph-data-indexing"></a></li>
</ul></dd>
<dt><code>@list</code></dt>
<dd>Used to express an ordered set of data.
This keyword is described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#lists"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@set</code></dt>
<dd>Used to express an unordered set of data and to ensure that values are always
represented as arrays. This keyword is described in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#sets"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@reverse</code></dt>
<dd>Used to express reverse properties. This keyword is described in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#reverse-properties"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@index</code></dt>
<dd>Used to specify that a container is used to index information and
that processing should continue deeper into a JSON data structure.
This keyword is described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#data-indexing"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@base</code></dt>
<dd>Used to set the <a>base IRI</a> against which to resolve those <a>relative IRIs</a>
interpreted relative to the document.
This keyword is described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#base-iri"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@vocab</code></dt>
<dd>Used to expand properties and values in <code>@type</code> with a common prefix
<a>IRI</a>. This keyword is described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#default-vocabulary"></a>.</dd>
<dt><code>@graph</code></dt><dd>Used to express a <a>graph</a>.
This keyword is described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#named-graphs"></a>.</dd>
<dt class="changed"><code>@nest</code></dt><dd class="changed">Collects a set of <a>nested properties</a> within
a <a>node object</a>.</dd>
<dt class="changed"><code>@none</code></dt><dd class="changed">Used as an index value
in an <a>id map</a>, <a>language map</a>, <a>type map</a>, or elsewhere where a dictionary is
used to index into other values.</dd>
<dt class="changed"><code>@prefix</code></dt><dd class="changed">
With the value <a>true</a>, allows this <a>term</a> to be used to construct a <a>compact IRI</a>
when compacting.</dd>
<dt class="changed"><code>@version</code></dt><dd class="changed">
Used in a <a>context definition</a> to set the <a>processing mode</a>.
New features since <a data-cite="JSON-LD">JSON-LD 1.0</a> [[!JSON-LD]] described in this specification are
only available when <a>processing mode</a> has been explicitly set to
<code>json-ld-1.1</code>.
</dd>
<dt><code>:</code></dt>
<dd>The separator for JSON keys and values that use
<a>compact IRIs</a>.</dd>
</dl>
<p>All keys, <a>keywords</a>, and values in JSON-LD are case-sensitive.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="conformance">
<p>Conformance criteria are relevant to authors and authoring tool implementers. As well
as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples,
and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this
specification is normative.</p>
<p>A <a>JSON-LD document</a> complies with this specification if it follows
the normative statements in appendix <a href="#json-ld-grammar"></a>. JSON documents
can be interpreted as JSON-LD by following the normative statements in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#interpreting-json-as-json-ld"></a>. For convenience, normative
statements for documents are often phrased as statements on the properties of the document.</p>
<p>This specification makes use of the following namespace prefixes:</p>
<table class="simple">
<thead><tr>
<th>Prefix</th>
<th>IRI</th>
</tr></thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>dc</td>
<td>http://purl.org/dc/terms/</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>cred</td>
<td>https://w3id.org/credentials#</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>foaf</td>
<td>http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>geojson</td>
<td>https://purl.org/geojson/vocab#</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>prov</td>
<td>http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>rdf</td>
<td>http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>schema</td>
<td>http://schema.org/</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>xsd</td>
<td>http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>These are used within this document as part of a <a>compact IRI</a>
as a shorthand for the resulting <a>absolute IRI</a>, such as <code>dc:title</code>
used to represent <code>http://purl.org/dc/terms/title</code>.</p>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h1>Basic Concepts</h1>
<p>JSON [[RFC8259]] is a lightweight, language-independent data interchange format.
It is easy to parse and easy to generate. However, it is difficult to integrate JSON
from different sources as the data may contain keys that conflict with other
data sources. Furthermore, JSON has no
built-in support for hyperlinks, which are a fundamental building block on
the Web. Let's start by looking at an example that we will be using for the
rest of this section:</p>
<pre class="example" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Sample JSON document">
<!--
{
"name": "Manu Sporny",
"homepage": "http://manu.sporny.org/",
"image": "http://manu.sporny.org/images/manu.png"
}
-->
</pre>
<p>It's obvious to humans that the data is about a person whose
<code>name</code> is "Manu Sporny"
and that the <code>homepage</code> property contains the URL of that person's homepage.
A machine doesn't have such an intuitive understanding and sometimes,
even for humans, it is difficult to resolve ambiguities in such representations. This problem
can be solved by using unambiguous identifiers to denote the different concepts instead of
tokens such as "name", "homepage", etc.</p>
<p>Linked Data, and the Web in general, uses <a>IRIs</a>
(<a data-cite="RFC3987#section-2">Internationalized Resource Identifiers</a> as described in [[!RFC3987]]) for unambiguous
identification. The idea is to use <a>IRIs</a>
to assign unambiguous identifiers to data that may be of use to other developers.
It is useful for <a>terms</a>,
like <code>name</code> and <code>homepage</code>, to expand to <a>IRIs</a>
so that developers don't accidentally step on each other's terms. Furthermore, developers and
machines are able to use this <a>IRI</a> (by using a web browser, for instance) to go to
the term and get a definition of what the term means. This process is known as <a>IRI</a>
dereferencing.</p>
<p>Leveraging the popular <a href="http://schema.org/">schema.org vocabulary</a>,
the example above could be unambiguously expressed as follows:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Sample JSON-LD document using full IRIs instead of terms">
<!--
{
"****http://schema.org/name****": "Manu Sporny",
"****http://schema.org/url****": ****{ "@id": ****"http://manu.sporny.org/" ****}****, ####← The '@id' keyword means 'This value is an identifier that is an IRI'####
"****http://schema.org/image****": ****{ "@id": ****"http://manu.sporny.org/images/manu.png" ****}****
}
-->
</pre>
<p>In the example above, every property is unambiguously identified by an <a>IRI</a> and all values
representing <a>IRIs</a> are explicitly marked as such by the
<code>@id</code> <a>keyword</a>. While this is a valid JSON-LD
document that is very specific about its data, the document is also overly verbose and difficult
to work with for human developers. To address this issue, JSON-LD introduces the notion
of a <a>context</a> as described in the next section.</p>
<section class="informative">
<h2>The Context</h2>
<p>When two people communicate with one another, the conversation takes
place in a shared environment, typically called
"the context of the conversation". This shared context allows the
individuals to use shortcut terms, like the first name of a mutual friend,
to communicate more quickly but without losing accuracy. A context in
JSON-LD works in the same way. It allows two applications to use shortcut
terms to communicate with one another more efficiently, but without
losing accuracy.</p>
<p>Simply speaking, a <a>context</a> is used to map <a>terms</a> to
<a>IRIs</a>. <a>Terms</a> are case sensitive
and any valid <a>string</a> that is not a reserved JSON-LD <a>keyword</a>
can be used as a <a>term</a>.</p>
<p>For the sample document in the previous section, a <a>context</a> would
look something like this:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
data-context-for="Sample JSON document"
title="Context for the sample document in the previous section">
<!--
{
****"@context": {
"name": "http://schema.org/name",**** ####← This means that 'name' is shorthand for 'http://schema.org/name'#### ****
"image": {
"@id": "http://schema.org/image",**** ####← This means that 'image' is shorthand for 'http://schema.org/image'#### ****
"@type": "@id"**** ####← This means that a string value associated with 'image' should be interpreted as an identifier that is an IRI#### ****
},
"homepage": {
"@id": "http://schema.org/url",**** ####← This means that 'homepage' is shorthand for 'http://schema.org/url'#### ****
"@type": "@id"**** ####← This means that a string value associated with 'homepage' should be interpreted as an identifier that is an IRI#### ****
}
}****
}
-->
</pre>
<p>As the <a>context</a> above shows, the value of a <a>term definition</a> can
either be a simple string, mapping the <a>term</a> to an <a>IRI</a>,
or a <a>dictionary</a>.</p>
<p>When a when a <a>member</a> with a <a>term</a> key has a <a>dictionary</a> value, the <a>dictionary</a> is called
an <a>expanded term definition</a>. The example above specifies that
the values of <code>image</code> and <code>homepage</code>, if they are
strings, are to be interpreted as
<a>IRIs</a>. <a>Expanded term definitions</a>
also allow terms to be used for <a href="#data-indexing">index maps</a>
and to specify whether <a>array</a> values are to be
interpreted as <a href="#sets">sets</a> or <a href="#lists">lists</a>.
<a>Expanded term definitions</a> may
be defined using <a data-lt="absolute IRI">absolute</a> or
<a>compact IRIs</a> as keys, which is
mainly used to associate type or language information with an
<a data-lt="absolute IRI">absolute</a> or <a>compact IRI</a>.</p>
<p><a>Contexts</a> can either be directly embedded
into the document or be referenced. Assuming the context document in the previous
example can be retrieved at <code>https://json-ld.org/contexts/person.jsonld</code>,
it can be referenced by adding a single line and allows a JSON-LD document to
be expressed much more concisely as shown in the example below:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Referencing a JSON-LD context">
<!--
{
****"@context": "https://json-ld.org/contexts/person.jsonld",****
"name": "Manu Sporny",
"homepage": "http://manu.sporny.org/",
"image": "http://manu.sporny.org/images/manu.png"
}
-->
</pre>
<p>The referenced context not only specifies how the terms map to
<a>IRIs</a> in the Schema.org vocabulary but also
specifies that string values associated with
the <code>homepage</code> and <code>image</code> property
can be interpreted as an <a>IRI</a> (<code>"@type": "@id"</code>,
see <a class="sectionRef" href="#iris"></a> for more details). This information allows developers
to re-use each other's data without having to agree to how their data will interoperate
on a site-by-site basis. External JSON-LD context documents may contain extra
information located outside of the <code>@context</code> key, such as
documentation about the <a>terms</a> declared in the
document. Information contained outside of the <code>@context</code> value
is ignored when the document is used as an external JSON-LD context document.</p>
<p>JSON documents can be interpreted as JSON-LD without having to be modified by
referencing a <a>context</a> via an <a data-cite="RFC8288#section-3">HTTP Link Header</a>
as described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#interpreting-json-as-json-ld"></a>. It is also
possible to apply a custom context using the JSON-LD 1.1 API [[JSON-LD11-API]].</p>
<p>In <a>JSON-LD documents</a>,
<a>contexts</a> may also be specified inline.
This has the advantage that documents can be processed even in the
absence of a connection to the Web. Ultimately, this is a modeling decision
and different use cases may require different handling.</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="In-line context definition">
<!--
{
****"@context": {
"name": "http://schema.org/name",
"image": {
"@id": "http://schema.org/image",
"@type": "@id"
},
"homepage": {
"@id": "http://schema.org/url",
"@type": "@id"
}
},****
"name": "Manu Sporny",
"homepage": "http://manu.sporny.org/",
"image": "http://manu.sporny.org/images/manu.png"
}
-->
</pre>
<p>This section only covers the most basic features of the JSON-LD Context.
The Context can also be used to help interpret other more
complex JSON data structures, such as <a href="#indexed-values">indexed values</a>,
<a href="#sets-and-lists">ordered values</a>, and
<a href="#nested-properties">nested properties</a>.
More advanced features related to the JSON-LD Context are covered in
section <a href="#advanced-concepts" class="sectionRef"></a>.</p>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h2>IRIs</h2>
<p><a>IRIs</a> (<a data-cite="RFC3987#section-2">Internationalized Resource Identifiers</a>
[[!RFC3987]]) are fundamental to Linked Data as that is how most
<a>nodes</a> and <a>properties</a>
are identified. In JSON-LD, IRIs may be represented as an
<a>absolute IRI</a> or a <a>relative IRI</a>. An
<a data-cite="RFC3987#section-1.3">absolute IRI</a> is defined in [[!RFC3987]] as containing a
<em>scheme</em> along with <em>path</em> and optional <em>query</em> and
<em>fragment</em> segments. A <a>relative IRI</a> is an IRI
that is relative to some other <a>absolute IRI</a>.
In JSON-LD, with exceptions are as described below, all <a>relative IRIs</a>
are resolved relative to the <a>base IRI</a>.</p>
<p class="note"><a>Properties</a>, values of <code>@type</code>,
and values of <a>properties</a> with a <a>term definition</a>
that defines them as being relative to the <a>vocabulary mapping</a>,
may have the form of a <a>relative IRI</a>, but are resolved using the
<a>vocabulary mapping</a>, and not the <a>base IRI</a>.</p>
<p>A <a>string</a> is interpreted as an <a>IRI</a> when it is the
value of an <a>dictionary member</a> with the key<code>@id</code>:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Values of @id are interpreted as IRI">
<!--
{
####...####
"homepage": { "****@id****": "http://example.com/" }
####...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p>Values that are interpreted as <a>IRIs</a>, can also be
expressed as <a>relative IRIs</a>. For example,
assuming that the following document is located at
<code>http://example.com/about/</code>, the <a>relative IRI</a>
<code>../</code> would expand to <code>http://example.com/</code> (for more
information on where <a>relative IRIs</a> can be
used, please refer to section <a href="#json-ld-grammar"></a>).</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="IRIs can be relative">
<!--
{
####...####
"homepage": { "****@id****": "../" }
####...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p><a>Absolute IRIs</a> can be expressed directly
in the key position like so:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="IRI as a key">
<!--
{
####...####
"****http://schema.org/name****": "Manu Sporny"####,
...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p>In the example above, the key <code>http://schema.org/name</code>
is interpreted as an <a>absolute IRI</a>.</p>
<p>Term-to-IRI expansion occurs if the key matches a <a>term</a> defined
within the <a>active context</a>:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Term expansion from context definition">
<!--
{
"****@context****": {
"****name****": "****http://schema.org/name****"
},
"****name****": "Manu Sporny",
"status": "trollin'"
}
-->
</pre>
<p>JSON keys that do not expand to an <a>IRI</a>, such as <code>status</code>
in the example above, are not Linked Data and thus ignored when processed.</p>
<p>If type <a>coercion</a> rules are specified in the <code>@context</code> for
a particular <a>term</a> or property IRI, an IRI is generated:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Type coercion">
<!--
{****
"@context": {
####...####
"homepage": {
"@id": "http://schema.org/url",
"@type": "@id"
}
####...####
},****
####...####
"homepage": "http://manu.sporny.org/"
####...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p>In the example above, since the value <code>http://manu.sporny.org/</code>
is expressed as a JSON <a>string</a>, the type <a>coercion</a>
rules will transform the value into an IRI when processing the data.
See <a class="sectionRef" href="#type-coercion"></a> for more
details about this feature.</p>
<p>In summary, <a>IRIs</a> can be expressed in a variety of
different ways in JSON-LD:</p>
<ol>
<li><a>Dictionary members</a> that have a key mapping to a <a>term</a> in
the <a>active context</a> expand to an <a>IRI</a>
(only applies outside of the <a>context definition</a>).</li>
<li>An <a>IRI</a> is generated for the <a>string</a> value specified using
<code>@id</code> or <code>@type</code>.</li>
<li>An <a>IRI</a> is generated for the <a>string</a> value of any key for which there
are <a>coercion</a> rules that contain an <code>@type</code> key that is
set to a value of <code>@id</code> or <code>@vocab</code>.</li>
</ol>
<p>This section only covers the most basic features associated with IRIs
in JSON-LD. More advanced features related to IRIs are covered in
section <a href="#advanced-concepts"></a>.
</p>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h2>Node Identifiers</h2>
<p>To be able to externally reference <a>nodes</a>
in a <a>graph</a>, it is important that
<a>nodes</a> have an identifier. <a>IRIs</a>
are a fundamental concept of Linked Data, for
<a>nodes</a> to be truly linked, dereferencing the
identifier should result in a representation of that <a>node</a>.
This may allow an application to retrieve further information about a
<a>node</a>.</p>
<p>In JSON-LD, a <a>node</a> is identified using the <code>@id</code>
<a>keyword</a>:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Identifying a node">
<!--
{
"@context": {
####...####
"name": "http://schema.org/name"
},
****"@id": "http://me.markus-lanthaler.com/"****,
"name": "Markus Lanthaler"####,
...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p>The example above contains a <a>node object</a> identified by the IRI
<code>http://me.markus-lanthaler.com/</code>.</p>
<p>This section only covers the most basic features associated with
node identifiers in JSON-LD. More advanced features related to
node identifiers are covered in section <a href="#advanced-concepts"></a>.
</p>
</section>
<section class="informative">
<h2>Specifying the Type</h2>
<p>In Linked Data, it is common to specify the type of a graph node;
in many cases, this can be inferred based on the properties used within a
given <a>node object</a>, or the property for which a node is a value. For
example, in the <em>schema.org</em> vocabulary, the <em>givenName</em>
property is associated with a <em>Person</em>. Therefore, one may reason that
if a <a>node object</a> contains the property <em>firstName</em>, that the
type is a <em>Person</em>; making this explicit with <code>@type</code> helps
to clarify the association.</p>
<p>The type of a particular node can be specified using the <code>@type</code>
<a>keyword</a>. In Linked Data, types are uniquely
identified with an <a>IRI</a>.</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Specifying the type for a node">
<!--
{
"@context": {
####...####
****"givenName": "http://schema.org/givenName",
"familyName": "http://schema.org/familyName"****
},
"@id": "http://me.markus-lanthaler.com/",
****"@type": "http://schema.org/Person",
"givenName": "Markus",
"familyName": "Lanthaler"****####,
...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p>A node can be assigned more than one type by using an <a>array</a>:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Specifying multiple types for a node">
<!--
{
####...####
"@id": "http://me.markus-lanthaler.com/",
"@type": ****[****
"http://schema.org/Person",
****"http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person"****
]####,
...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p>The value of an <code>@type</code> key may also be a <a>term</a> defined in the <a>active context</a>:</p>
<pre class="example nohighlight" data-transform="updateExample"
title="Using a term to specify the type">
<!--
{
"@context": {
####...####
****"Person": "http://schema.org/Person"****
},
"@id": "http://example.org/places#BrewEats",
****"@type": "Person"****####,
...####
}
-->
</pre>
<p class="note">This section only covers the most basic features associated with
types in JSON-LD. It is worth noting that the <code>@type</code>
<a>keyword</a> is not only used to specify the type of a
<a>node</a> but also to express <a>typed values</a>
(as described in <a class="sectionRef" href="#typed-values"></a>) and to
<a data-lt="coercion">type coerce</a> values (as described in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#type-coercion"></a>). Specifically, <code>@type</code>
cannot be used in a <a>context</a> to define a <a>node</a>'s
type. For a detailed description of the differences, please refer to
<a class="sectionRef" href="#typed-values"></a>.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section class="normative">
<h1>Advanced Concepts</h1>
<p>JSON-LD has a number of features that provide functionality above and beyond
the core functionality described above. JSON can be used to express data
using such structures, and the features described in this
section can be used to interpret a variety of different JSON structures as
Linked Data. A JSON-LD processor will make use of provided and embedded
contexts to interpret property values in a number of different idiomatic
ways.</p>
<dl>