DBPedia: SPARQL query on field starting with literal

Question

I am trying to get the respective DBPedia entry for a list of companies. I can't figure out how to do approximate matches. Example: "Audi" is called "Audi AG" in DBPedia and "Novartis" is called "Novartis International AG" (foaf:name). How do I search for entries with rdf:type = dbo:Company and name closest to whatever I provide?

I'm using SPARQL as the query language. (But I'm open to change if there is an advantage.)

select ?company
where {
  ?company foaf:name "Novartis"@en.
  ?company a dbo:Company.
}
LIMIT 100

I get no hit but http://dbpedia.org/page/Novartis should be found. Matching the beginning of the name might be good enough to get this.

Answer 1

For DBpedia, the best option might be to use the bif:contains full-text search pseudo property:

SELECT ?company {
  ?company a dbo:Company.
  ?company foaf:name ?name.
  ?name bif:contains "Novartis"@en.
}

This feature is specific to the Virtuoso database that powers the DBpedia SPARQL endpoint.

If you want to stick to standard SPARQL , to match at the beginning of the name only:

SELECT ?company {
  ?company a dbo:Company.
  ?company foaf:name ?name.
  FILTER strStarts(?name, "Novartis")
}

Unlike the full-text feature, this version cannot make use of a text index, so it is slower.

If you want a more flexible match :

SELECT ?company {
  ?company a dbo:Company.
  ?company foaf:name ?name.
  FILTER contains(lCase(?name), lCase("Novartis"))
}

This will find a case-insensitive match anywhere in the name.