S2CTrans: Building a bridge from SPARQL to Cypher

In graph data applications, data is primarily maintained using two models: RDF (Resource Description Framework) and property graph. The property graph model is widely adopted by industry, leading to property graph databases generally outperforming RDF databases in graph traversal query performance. However, users often prefer SPARQL as their query language, as it is the W3C's recommended standard. Consequently, exploring SPARQL-to-Property-Graph-Query-Language translation is crucial for enhancing graph query language interoperability and enabling effective querying of property graphs using SPARQL. Despite the substantial differences in semantic representation and processing logic between SPARQL and property graph query languages like Cypher, this paper demonstrates the feasibility of translating SPARQL to Cypher for graph traversal queries using graph relational algebra. We present the S2CTrans framework, which achieves SPARQL-to-Cypher translation while preserving the original semantics. Experimental results with the Berlin SPARQL Benchmark (BSBM) datasets show that S2CTrans successfully converts most SELECT queries in the SPARQL 1.1 specification into type-safe Cypher statements, maintaining result consistency and improving the efficiency of data querying using SPARQL.