Owlready2 is a module for ontology-oriented programming in Python 3, including an optimized RDF quadstore.

Owlready2 can:

• Import OWL 2.0 ontologies in NTriples, RDF/XML or OWL/XML format
• Export OWL 2.0 ontologies to NTriples or RDF/XML
• Manipulates ontology classes, instances and properties transparently, as if they were normal Python objects
• Add Python methods to ontology classes
• Perform automatic classification of classes and instances, using the HermiT or Pellet reasoner (included)
• Load DBpedia or UMLS (for medical terminology, using the integrated PyMedTermino2 submodule)
• Tested up to 1 billion of RDF triples! (but can potentially support more)
• In addition, the quadstore is compatible with the RDFlib Python module, which can be used to perform SPARQL queries
• Finally, Owlready2 can also be used as an ORM (Object-Relational mapper) -- as a graph/object database, it beats Neo4J, MongoDB, SQLObject and SQLAlchemy in terms of performances

Owlready has been created by Jean-Baptiste Lamy at the LIMICS reseach lab. It is available under the GNU LGPL licence v3. If you use Owlready in scientific works, please cite the following article:

Lamy JB. Owlready: Ontology-oriented programming in Python with automatic classification and high level constructs for biomedical ontologies. Artificial Intelligence In Medicine 2017;80:11-28

In case of troubles, questions or comments, please use this Forum/Mailing list: http://owlready.8326.n8.nabble.com

Load an ontology from a local repository, or from Internet:

>>> from owlready2 import *
>>> onto_path.append("/path/to/your/local/ontology/repository")
>>> onto = get_ontology("http://www.lesfleursdunormal.fr/static/_downloads/pizza_onto.owl")
>>> onto.load()

Create new classes in the ontology, possibly mixing OWL constructs and Python methods:

::

>>> with onto:
...     class NonVegetarianPizza(onto.Pizza):
...       equivalent_to = [
...         onto.Pizza
...       & ( onto.has_topping.some(onto.MeatTopping)
...         | onto.has_topping.some(onto.FishTopping)
...         ) ]
...       def eat(self): print("Beurk! I'm vegetarian!")

Access ontology class, and create new instances / individuals:

>>> onto.Pizza
pizza_onto.Pizza
>>> test_pizza = onto.Pizza("test_pizza_owl_identifier")
>>> test_pizza.has_topping = [ onto.CheeseTopping(),
...                            onto.TomatoTopping(),
...                            onto.MeatTopping  () ]

Export to RDF/XML file:

>>> test_onto.save()

Perform reasoning, and classify instances and classes:

>>> test_pizza.__class__
onto.Pizza

>>> # Execute HermiT and reparent instances and classes
>>> sync_reasoner()

>>> test_pizza.__class__
onto.NonVegetarianPizza
>>> test_pizza.eat()
Beurk! I'm vegetarian !

Access to medical terminologies from UMLS:

>>> from owlready2 import *
>>> from owlready2.pymedtermino2.umls import *
>>> default_world.set_backend(filename = "pym.sqlite3")
>>> import_umls("umls-2018AB-full.zip", terminologies = ["ICD10", "SNOMEDCT_US", "CUI"])
>>> default_world.save()

>>> PYM = get_ontology("http://PYM/").load()
>>> ICD10       = PYM["ICD10"]
>>> SNOMEDCT_US = PYM["SNOMEDCT_US"]

>>> SNOMEDCT_US[186675001]
SNOMEDCT_US["186675001"] # Viral pharyngoconjunctivitis

>>> SNOMEDCT_US[186675001] >> ICD10   # Map to ICD10
Concepts([
  ICD10["B30.9"] # Viral conjunctivitis, unspecified
])

For more documentation, look at the doc/ directories in the source.

• Fix sync_reasonner and Hermit call under windows (thanks Clare Grasso)

• Add warnings
• Accepts ontologies files that do not ends with '.owl'
• Fix a bug when loading ontologies including concept without a '#' in their IRI

• Full rewrite, including an optimized quadstore

• Implement RDFXML parser and generator in Python (no longer use rapper or rdflib)
• Property chain support
• Add ntriples_diff.py utility
• Bugfixes: - Fix breaklines in literal when exporting to NTriples

• Add destroy_entity() global function
• Greatly improve performance for individual creation
• When searching, allow to use "*" as a jocker for any object
• Bugfixes: - Fix nested intersections and unions - Fix boolean - Fix bug when removing parent properties - Fix parsing of rdf:ID - Fix multiple loading of the same ontology whose IRI is modified by OWL file, using an ontology alias table - Fix ClassConstruct.subclasses() - Check for properties with multiple incompatible classes (e.g. ObjectProperty and Annotation Property)

• Add methods for querying the properties defined for a given individuals, the inverse properties and the relation instances (.get_properties(), .get_inverse_properties() and .get_relations())
• Add .indirect() method to obtain indirect relations (considering subproperties, transivitity, symmetry and reflexibity)
• search() now takes into account inheritance and inverse properties
• search() now accepts 'None' for searching for entities without a given relation
• Optimize ontology loading by recreating SQL index from scratch
• Optimize SQL query for transitive quadstore queries, using RECURSIVE Sqlite3 statements
• Optimize SQL query for obtaining the number of RDF triples (ie len(default_world.graph))
• Add Artificial Intelligence In Medicine scientific article in doc and Readme
• Bugfixes: - Fix properties loading when reusing an ontology from a disk-stored quadstore - Fix _inherited_property_value_restrictions() when complement (Not) is involved - Fix restrictions with cardinality - Fix doc on AllDisjoint / AllDifferent

• Add individual/instance editor (require EditObj3, still largely untested)
• Add support for hasSelf restriction
• Optimize XML parsers
• Check for cyclic subclass of/subproperty of, and show warning
• PyPy 3 support (devel version of PyPy 3)
• Bugfixes: - Fix search() for '*' value on properties with inverse - Fix individual.annotation = "..." and property.annotation = "..." - Fix PlainLiteral annotation with no language specified - Fix doc for Creating classes dynamically - Fix loading ontologies with python_name annotations - Fix _inherited_property_value_restrictions when multiple is-a / equivalent-to are present - Align Python floats with xsd:double rather than xsd:decimal - Rename module 'property' as 'prop', to avoid name clash with Python's 'property()' type

• Add set_datatype_iri() global function for associating a Python datatype to an IRI
• Add nquads ontology format (useful for debugging)
• Add support for dir() on individuals
• Add support for ontology using https: protocol (thanks Samourkasidis Argyrios)
• Add observe module (for registering callback when the ontology is modified)
• Improve docs
• Bugfixes: - Align Python floats with xsd:decimal rather than xsd:double, finally, because decimal accepts int too - Fix Class.instances() so as it returns instances of subclasses (as indicated in the doc) - Fix direct assignation to Ontology.imported_ontologies - Fix a bug in reasoning, when adding deduced facts between one loaded and one non-loaded entity

• Bugfixes: - Restore HermiT compiled with older Java compilator (higher compatibility)

• Bugfixes: - REALLY restore HermiT compiled with older Java compilator (higher compatibility) - Fix search(prop = "value") when value is a string and the ontology uses localized string

• PostgresQL backend (in addition to SQLite3)
• Add 'exclusive = False' option for SQLite3 backend (slower, but allows multiple uses)
• Use unique index in sqlite3 quadstore on resources table
• Optimize sqlite3 quadstore by caching IRI dict (5% faster)
• Add == support for class construct
• Add get_namespace() support on World
• Add 'existential restrictions as class properties' feature
• Bugfixes: - Fix imported ontologies - Fix saving ontologies in onto_path - Fix clear() on CallbackList - Fix bug in Class IRI in ontologies whose base IRI ends with a / - Fix imported ontologies in ontologies whose base IRI ends with a /

• Add Ontology.metadata for adding/querying ontology metadata
• Allows multiple individual creations with the same name/IRI, now returning the same individuals
• Add OwlReadyInconsistentOntologyError and Word.inconsistent_classes()
• Implement RDF/XML and OWL/XML parsing in Cython (25% speed boost for parsing)
• Small optimization
• Extend individual.prop.indirect() to include relations asserted at the class level
• Add .query_owlready() method to RDF graph
• Bugfixes: - Fix reasoning when obtaining classes equivalent to nothing - Fix World creation with backend parameters - Fix error when adding property at the class definition level - Fix loading of ontology files with no extension from onto_path - Fix properties defined with type 'RDF Property' and subproperty of 'OWL Data/Object/Annotation Property' - Support old SQLite3 versions that do not accept WITHOUT ROWID - Fix reference to undeclared entities (they were replaced by None, now by their IRI) - Fix loading and saving ontologies whose base IRI ends with / - Fix RDF query using string

• Optimized Full-Text Search
• Support Pellet reasoner in addition to HermiT
• Support loading of huge OWL files (incremental load)
• Use Class.property.indirect() for indirect Class property (instead of Class.property)
• Add reload and reload_if_newer parameters to Ontology.load()
• search() is now much faster on properties that have inverse
• Add shortcut for SOME ConstrainedDatatype: e.g. age >= 65
• Bugfixes: - Fix creation of an individual that already exists in the quadstore - Fix missing import of EntityClass in class_construct.py - Fix World.save() with RDF/XML format - Fix Thing.subclasses() and Thing.descendants() - Fix ontology's update time for ontologies created de novo in Python with Owlready - Fix reasoning when asserting new parents with equivalent classes

• New quadstore
• Numerical search (NumS, e.g. all patients with age > 65)
• Nested searches
• Synchronization for multithreading support
• Add Class.inverse_restrictions() and Class.direct_instances()
• Drop PostgresQL support (little interest: more complex and slower than Sqlite3)
• Bugfixes: - Fix call to _get_by_storid2 - Fix rdfs_subclassof in doc - Fix FTS triggers - Fix boolean in RDFlib / SPARQL - Fix bug when destroying an AnnotationProperty

• Bugfixes: - Fix performance regression due to suboptimal index in the quadstore - Fix messing up with IRI ending with a / - Fix error in World cloning - Fix the addition of Thing in class's parent when redefining a class with Thing as the only parent - Fix inverse_resctriction() - Add error message when creating an existent quadstore

• UMLS support (owlready2.pymedtermino2 package)
• Can infer object property values when reasoning (thanks W Zimmer)
• New implementation of property values; use INDIRECT_prop to get indirect values
• Support several class property types : some, only, some + only, and direct relation
• Automatically create defined classes via class properties
• Support anonymous individuals, e.g. Thing(0)
• Optimize search() when only the number of returned elements is used
• Optimize FTS search() when using also non-FTS statements
• Can restrict reasoning to a list of ontologies
• Union searches (i.e. default_world.search(...) | default_world.search(...))
• Bugfixes: - Fix functional class properties with inheritance - Fix dupplicated instance list restrictions when calling close_world(ontology) - Fix use of '*' in search - Fix synchronization, using contextvars for global variables

• Can infer data property values when reasoning with Pellet
• Optimize searches with 'type =', 'subclass_of =', or 'is_a =' parameters
• Add Property.range_iri
• Add _case_sensitive parameter to search()
• Add inverse property support in RDFlib support
• Show Java error message when reasoners crash
• Bugfixes: - Consider inverse property in get_properties() - Fix parsing bug in reasoning with HermiT and infer_property_values = True - Namespace prefix support in RDFlib binding - Fix dupplicates values when a relation involving a property with inverse is asserted in both directions - Better workaround in case of metaclass conflict - Fix 'sqlite3.OperationalError: too many SQL variables' in searches with 'type =', 'subclass_of =', or 'is_a =' parameters

• Optimize nested searches
• search(sublclass_of = xxx) now returns xxx itself in the results
• Support "with long_ontology_name as onto" syntax
• In UMLS import, add optional parameters for preventing extraction of attributes, relations, etc
• Support SPARQL INSERT queries
• Optimize Pymedtermino mapping
• Doc for PyMedTermino2
• Bugfixes: - Fix 'Cannot release un-acquired lock' error when reasoning on inconsistent ontologies inside a 'with' statement - Fix bug when loading a property that refers to another property from a quadstore stored on disk - Fix RDF triple suppression with RDFlib when object is a datatype

• SWRL rule support
• Allows importing UMLS suppressed terms
• Uncache entities when relaoding an ontology
• Bugfixes: - Fix PyMedTermino2 installation - Fix data property value inferrence with debug = 1 - Fix sort() in LazyList (thanks fiveop!) - Fix World.get() and add World.get_if_loaded() - Add appropriate error message when importing UMLS with Python 3.6 - Fix individuals belonging to multiple, equivalent, classes after reasoning

• Add UNIQUE constraints for preventing dupplicated RDF triples in the quadstore
• Add Individual.INDIRECT_is_a / Individual.INDIRECT_is_instance_of
• Add isinstance_python() (faster than isinstance(), but do not consider equivalent_to relations)
• Bugfixes: - Force UTF-8 encoding when importing UMLS - Be more tolerant when loading OWL file

• Consider symmetric properties as their own inverse properties
• Update Python objects after basic SPARQL update/delete queries (works on user-defined properties, hierarchical properties (type/subclassof) and equivalence properties)
• Add individual.INVERSE_property
• Add Class.INDIRECT_is_a
• INDIRECT_is_a / INDIRECT_is_instance_of now include class contructs. ancestors() has a 'include_constructs' parameter, which defaults to False.
• Add more aliases for XMLSchema datatypes
• Add is_a property to class constructs
• Add bottomObjectProperty and bottomDataProperty
• Support ReflexiveProperties in individual.INDIRECT_property
• Optimize Thing.subclasses()
• Optimize search() with multiple criteria, including those done by PyMedTermino
• Add support for destroy_entity(SWRL_rule)
• Add support for UMLS "metathesaurus" format in addition to "full" format
• Bugfixes: - After reasoning, keep all equivalent classes as parents of individuals (as they may have methods) - Fix IndividualPropertyAtom when creating SWRL rule - Fix SWRL parser - Fix RDF serialization for nested RDF lists - Fix removing inverse property (i.e. Prop.inverse = None) - Fix datetime parsing for date with time zone or milliseconds

• Add support for undoable destroy_entity()
• Small database optimizations
• No longer treat properties associated with exactly-1 or max-1 restriction as functional properties, returning single values instead of a list (you can restore the previous behaviour as follows: import owlready2.prop; owlready2.prop.RESTRICTIONS_AS_FUNCTIONAL_PROPERTIES = True)
• Bugfixes: - Fix performance bug on UMLS mapping in PyMedTermino

• Use Pellet 2.3.1 (same version as Protégé) instead of 2.4 (which has a bug in SWRL for many builtin predicates including equals and matches)
• Much faster mangement of annotations on relations
• Bugfixes: - Fix bug on blank node in RDFlib/SPARQL support - Fix bug on blank node deletion in RDFlib/SPARQL support - Fix data loss in Restriction modification - Fix 'no query solution' error in search() - Fix literal support in RDF lists, causing "TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'NoneType' and 'int'" when saving ontologies - Fix DifferentFrom SWRL builtin - Fix string parsing in SWRL rules - Fix string and boolean literal representation (str/repr) in SWRL rules - Fix the inverse of subproperties having a symmetric superproperty

• Add support for disjoint unions (Class.disjoint_unions)
• Add deepcopy support on class constructs, and automatically deep-copy constructs when needed (i.e. no more OwlReadySharedBlankNodeError)
• Support the creation of blank nodes with RDFlib

• Add get_parents_of(), get_instances_of(), get_children_of() methods to ontology, for querying the hierarchical relations defined in a given ontology
• Use Thing as default value for restrictions with number, instead of None
• Add 'filter' parameter to save(), for filtering the entities saved (contributed by Javier de la Rosa)
• Bugfixes: - Fix value restriction with the false value - Fix blank node loading from different ontologies - Fix constructs reused by several classes - Fix 'Class.is_a = []' was not turning the list into an Owlready list - Fix destroy_entity() - was not destroying the IRI of the entity - Improve setup.py: ignore Cython if Cython installation fails

• Support intersection of searches (e.g. World.search(...) & World.search(...))
• Add owlready2.reasoning.JAVA_MEMORY
• Move development repository to Git
• Bugfixes: - Fix parsing of NTriples files that do not end with a new line - Fix KeyError with Prop.python_name when several properties share the same name - Fix get_ontology() calls in Python module imported by ontologies in a World that is not default_world - Fix use of PyMedTermino2 in a World that is not default_world - Fix World.as_rdflib_graph().get_context(onto) for ontology added after the creation of the RDFLIB graph - Fix destroying SWRL rules - Fix disjoint with non-atomic classes

• Allow the declaration of custom datatypes with declare_datatype()
• Support the annotation of annotations (e.g. a comment on a comment)
• search() now support the "subproperty_of" argument
• search() now support the "bm25" argument (for full-text searches)
• Bugfixes: - Fix Concept.descendant_concepts() in PymedTermino2 - Update already loaded properties when new ontologies are loaded - Now accept %xx quoted characters in file:// URL - Improve error message on punned entities - Property.get_relations() now considers inverse properties - Fix "AttributeError: 'mappingproxy' object has no attribute 'pop'" error - Fix Thing.instances()

• Module owlready2.dl_render allows rendering entities to Description Logics (contributed by Simon Bin)
• Bugfixes: - Adjustment in the comparison of strings from SameAs and DiferrentFrom, allowing equal comparison regardless of the case-sensitive (contributed by Thiago Feijó) - Fix transitive equivalent_to relations between classes and OWL constructs - Fix AnnotationProperty[entity] where entity is a predefined OWL entity (e.g. comment or Thing) - Fix entity.AnnotationProperty where entity is a predefined OWL entity (e.g. comment or Thing)

Owlready2 on BitBucket (Git development repository): https://bitbucket.org/jibalamy/owlready2

Owlready2 on PyPI (Python Package Index, stable release): https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Owlready2

Documentation: http://owlready2.readthedocs.io/

Forum/Mailing list: http://owlready.8326.n8.nabble.com

Contact "Jiba" Jean-Baptiste Lamy:

<jean-baptiste.lamy *@* univ-paris13 *.* fr>
LIMICS
University Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cite
Bureau 149
74 rue Marcel Cachin
93017 BOBIGNY
FRANCE