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I would like to query freebase, to get some basic information about a celebrity. For example, I would like to get the place of birth, and the gender of Madonna.

I achieved to get Madonna's friends by using:

https://www.googleapis.com/freebase/v1/mqlread?&query={"id":"/en/madonna","name":null,"type":"/base/popstra/celebrity","/base/popstra/celebrity/friendship":[{"participant":[]}]}

But, I'm understanding this request pretty badly. How can I change it to get the information I talked above ?

I was thinking about :

https://www.googleapis.com/freebase/v1/mqlread?&query={"id":"/en/madonna","name":null,"type":"/base/popstra/celebrity","/base/popstra/celebrity/gender":[{"gender":}], "/base/popstra/celebrity/place_of_birth":[{"place of birth":}]}

but it's not working ofc.

Scipion
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1 Answers1

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Here is how you build MQL queries for Freebase topics:

  1. Find a sample topic that meets you query (ex. Madonna)

  2. Go the the Query Editor and build a simple query for the ID of that topic:

    [{ "id": "/en/madonna", "name": null }]​

  3. Go to the sample topic page, click on "Edit this topic" and find the facts that you want to query for (ex. Date of birth)

  4. You can see that Date of birth is part of the Person (/people/person) type.
  5. Click on little wrench icon to the right of Person to go to the schema page for that type.
  6. From there, you can see that the property that stores the date of birth is called /people/person/date_of_birth.

  7. Add the properties that you want to your query like so:

    [{ "id" "/en/madonna", "name": null, "/people/person/date_of_birth": null, "/people/person/gender": null }]​

  8. Queries can also specify a default type (ex. /people/person) which makes the property paths shorter:

    [{ "id" "/en/madonna", "name": null, "type": "/people/person", "date_of_birth": null, "gender": null }]​

  9. But each level of query can only have one default type so if you want to mix in properties from other types you'll need to use the full property IDs:

    [{ "id": "/en/madonna", "name": null, "type": "/people/person", "date_of_birth": null, "gender": null, "/base/popstra/celebrity/friendship": [{ "participant": [] }] }]​

  10. When you've got your query working in the query editor, just click the "Link" menu at the top right to get the MQLRead Link that will make that query to our API.

Shawn Simister
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  • Thank you very much, it helps a lot. One last question. Let's take the simple query : [{ "id": "/en/madonna", "name": null }] I've a lot's of query to do, and I got a key, how can I add it to the url ? (I'm meaning where in the url) I've seen query like that : https://www.googleapis.com/freebase/v1/ /mqlread?key=&query= ... but here, my url is a bit different (one with link button).So I tried : https://www.googleapis.com/freebase/v1 /mqlread/?lang=%2Flang%2Fen&?key=&query= this url works, but after some time, google rejects the connection (as if I didn't precise a key). – Scipion Oct 17 '12 at 19:45
  • The API key is just a regular query parameter. You can read up more on how to format a query string here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/724526/how-to-pass-multiple-parameters-in-a-querystring – Shawn Simister Oct 17 '12 at 23:00
  • Hello, I have a little problem, maybe can you help me. I'm trying to get the "currency features" from freebase. So I tried to do : "/base/schemastaging/person_extra/net_worth": null but, I can't get the value written on freebase (for example, with Madonna, it's 650,000,000). Do you know, why it's not working ? – Scipion Nov 01 '12 at 11:44
  • user1058398, please ask this as a separate question. – Shawn Simister Nov 01 '12 at 18:44