query functions or endpoint features in the sparql spec for describing the database / system itself

Question

In writing a thin client for querying SPARQL endpoints and monitoring the services, I found myself clumsily writing code (via queries and other strategies) to describe system information about the DB instance and other useful information. It led me to wonder if there is a better way.

Aside from the querying of data, are there any plans in the SPARQL spec or things that are already written in the spec for any of the following:

• describing the system itself
• describing the dataset itself
• describing any other diagnostic information

Answer 1

There is the SPARQL 1.1 Service Description W3 recommendation but unfortunately it is not well supported yet.

You can find more in Section 2 Endpoint Descriptions (page 3) of the fairly recent paper

Buil-Aranda, Carlos, et al. "SPARQL Web-Querying Infrastructure: Ready for Action?." The Semantic Web–ISWC 2013. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013. 277-293.

It is in fact almost exactly about what you seem to be doing so you might find more useful information there.

Otherwise, as @joshua-taylor says, there are some possibilities but most likely you will have to rely on triplestore-specific features. Unfortunately, not even the triple store is always identifiable via the Service Description Server field.