How to run RDFox on Windows and Mac using VS Code

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How to run RDFox on Windows and Mac Using VS Code

This is how to run RDFox on both Windows and Mac using VS Code.

In this video, we'll show you how to start RDFox and share some best practises.

To follow along, you'll need a free RDFox trial licence, RDFox itself and Visual Studio Code, but we'll show you where and how to get all three.

First, request a free RA Fox trial licence by filling out the form on our website at:

https://www.oxfordsemantic.tech/free-trial  

The free trial only lasts 30 days, so do make sure to make the most of it.

If you'd like any help with your project or to discuss it with us, then send us a message via the contact page.

While on the website, you can also download RA Fox from the Downloads page at:

https://www.oxfordsemantic.tech/download

At this point, make sure to download the appropriate version for your operating system.

Finally, download VS Code from the Visual Studio Code website. While VS Code isn't absolutely necessary to run RDFox, we highly recommend it as it's what we all here at OST use to manage our projects, including the RDFox workshops.

Now that you have RDFox and RDFox licence and VS Code installed, we're ready to begin.

The first step is to put your RDFox licence inside the RDFox folder. Without a licence, RDFox won't run.

Once you've done this, you'll see it alongside the RDFox executable. Remember where this is as it will be important later.

Next, locate or create your project folder. This is where you'll be working with your rules and data.

If you're watching this in preparation for one of our workshops, your project folder is the Workshop Material folder that contains the data, rules, exercises, and presentation decks.

If you haven't already, sign up to our free RDFox workshops that cover everything from the Foundations right up to Advanced Reasoning so you can take your RDFox skills to the next level.

Now we need to open our project folder in VS Code, which means we have to open VS Code itself first.

Once we're here, open your project folder by clicking file, open folder, and finding your project folder from before.

When you've done this, you can see any files that this folder contains listed in the side panel.

Next, we need to open a terminal, which we can do by selecting Terminal, New Terminal.

Notice the file path displayed in the terminal. This is your working directory, and it should point to your project folder.

From here, the process is slightly different on Windows and on Mac, so let's begin with Windows.

If you're on Mac, feel free to skip ahead.

When starting RDFox on Windows, we first have to find our RDFox executable and copy its file path.

To do this, go to the RDFox folder that you downloaded earlier and locate the RDFox.exe file.

Once you've found it, right click it and select Copy File Path.

Once we've done that, we can return to our terminal in VS Code.

Take note of your terminal profile in it's top right corner.

The two most common on Windows are PowerShell and CMD.

If you're using PowerShell, you'll have to 1st enter the & character to start your command.

Then, for both PowerShell and CMD, paste your RDFox file path into the terminal, making sure that it ends with RDFox.exe.

Finally, leave a space and type sandbox.

Running this command will start RDFox in sandbox mode.

Job well done.

Skip ahead to the bonus tips for more best practises. These will be particularly helpful if you're coming to the workshop.

When you're starting RDFox on Mac, we first have to find our RDFox executable and copy its file path.

To do this, go to the RDFox folder that you've downloaded before and locate the RDFox.exe file. Right click it and hold down the option key on your keyboard, then select Copy File Path.

Once we have that, we can return to our terminal in VS Code.

Now paste your RDFox file path into the terminal, making sure that it ends with RDFox.

Finally, leave a space and type sandbox.

Running this command will start RDFox in sandbox. Job well done.

Continue watching for bonus tips and more best practises.

These will be particularly helpful if you're coming to the workshop.

For those coming to one of our workshops or starting RDFox for the first time, we suggest that you move your RDFox folder inside your project folder. This makes the start up command much simpler as we can use the shorter relative file path instead. In practise and in some of our workshops, we make use of Adifox scripts that contains several commands.

This is particularly helpful when starting RDFox, as we're starting RDFox from our project folder that contains our script. Running a script on startup is as simple as adding a full stop after sandbox followed by the name of our script.

Now that you have RDFox up and running, watch our other videos to learn how to import data, run queries, and step away from the terminal and into our UI.

For more advice and to share your RDFox journey with RDFox experts, join the RDFox community.

And finally, if you'd like to discuss how to use RDFox in your commercial projects or how others are using it today all across the globe, get in touch via our website.

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