11,318 research outputs found
Towards an Efficient Evaluation of General Queries
Database applications often require to
evaluate queries containing quantifiers or disjunctions,
e.g., for handling general integrity constraints. Existing
efficient methods for processing quantifiers depart from the
relational model as they rely on non-algebraic procedures.
Looking at quantified query evaluation from a new angle,
we propose an approach to process quantifiers that makes
use of relational algebra operators only. Our approach
performs in two phases. The first phase normalizes the
queries producing a canonical form. This form permits to
improve the translation into relational algebra performed
during the second phase. The improved translation relies
on a new operator - the complement-join - that generalizes
the set difference, on algebraic expressions of universal
quantifiers that avoid the expensive division operator in
many cases, and on a special processing of disjunctions by
means of constrained outer-joins. Our method achieves an
efficiency at least comparable with that of previous
proposals, better in most cases. Furthermore, it is considerably
simpler to implement as it completely relies on
relational data structures and operators
Rewriting Declarative Query Languages
Queries against databases are formulated in declarative languages. Examples are the relational query language SQL and XPath or XQuery for querying data stored in XML. Using a declarative query language, the querist does not need to know about or decide on anything about the actual strategy a system uses to answer the query. Instead, the system can freely choose among the algorithms it employs to answer a query. Predominantly, query processing in the relational context is accomplished using a relational algebra. To this end, the query is translated into a logical algebra. The algebra consists of logical operators which facilitate the application of various optimization techniques. For example, logical algebra expressions can be rewritten in order to yield more efficient expressions. In order to query XML data, XPath and XQuery have been developed. Both are declarative query languages and, hence, can benefit from powerful optimizations. For instance, they could be evaluated using an algebraic framework. However, in general, the existing approaches are not directly utilizable for XML query processing. This thesis has two goals. The first goal is to overcome the above-mentioned misfits of XML query processing, making it ready for industrial-strength settings. Specifically, we develop an algebraic framework that is designed for the efficient evaluation of XPath and XQuery. To this end, we define an order-aware logical algebra and a translation of XPath into this algebra. Furthermore, based on the resulting algebraic expressions, we present rewrites in order to speed up the execution of such queries. The second goal is to investigate rewriting techniques in the relational context. To this end, we present rewrites based on algebraic equivalences that unnest nested SQL queries with disjunctions. Specifically, we present equivalences for unnesting algebraic expressions with bypass operators to handle disjunctive linking and correlation. Our approach can be applied to quantified table subqueries as well as scalar subqueries. For all our results, we present experiments that demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed approaches
Algebraic optimization of recursive queries
Over the past few years, much attention has been paid to deductive databases. They offer a logic-based interface, and allow formulation of complex recursive queries. However, they do not offer appropriate update facilities, and do not support existing applications. To overcome these problems an SQL-like interface is required besides a logic-based interface.\ud
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In the PRISMA project we have developed a tightly-coupled distributed database, on a multiprocessor machine, with two user interfaces: SQL and PRISMAlog. Query optimization is localized in one component: the relational query optimizer. Therefore, we have defined an eXtended Relational Algebra that allows recursive query formulation and can also be used for expressing executable schedules, and we have developed algebraic optimization strategies for recursive queries. In this paper we describe an optimization strategy that rewrites regular (in the context of formal grammars) mutually recursive queries into standard Relational Algebra and transitive closure operations. We also describe how to push selections into the resulting transitive closure operations.\ud
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The reason we focus on algebraic optimization is that, in our opinion, the new generation of advanced database systems will be built starting from existing state-of-the-art relational technology, instead of building a completely new class of systems
Pathfinder: XQuery - The Relational Way
Relational query processors are probably the best understood (as well as the best engineered) query engines available today. Although carefully tuned to process instances of the relational model (tables of tuples), these processors can also provide a foundation for the evaluation of "alien" (non-relational) query languages: if a relational encoding of the alien data model and its associated query language is given, the RDBMS may act like a special-purpose processor for the new language
Deductive Optimization of Relational Data Storage
Optimizing the physical data storage and retrieval of data are two key
database management problems. In this paper, we propose a language that can
express a wide range of physical database layouts, going well beyond the row-
and column-based methods that are widely used in database management systems.
We use deductive synthesis to turn a high-level relational representation of a
database query into a highly optimized low-level implementation which operates
on a specialized layout of the dataset. We build a compiler for this language
and conduct experiments using a popular database benchmark, which shows that
the performance of these specialized queries is competitive with a
state-of-the-art in memory compiled database system
MonetDB/XQuery: a fast XQuery processor powered by a relational engine
Relational XQuery systems try to re-use mature relational data management infrastructures to create fast and scalable XML database technology. This paper describes the main features, key contributions, and lessons learned while implementing such a system. Its architecture consists of (i) a range-based encoding of XML documents into relational tables, (ii) a compilation technique that translates XQuery into a basic relational algebra, (iii) a restricted (order) property-aware peephole relational query optimization strategy, and (iv) a mapping from XML update statements into relational updates. Thus, this system implements all essential XML database functionalities (rather than a single feature) such that we can learn from the full consequences of our architectural decisions. While implementing this system, we had to extend the state-of-the-art with a number of new technical contributions, such as loop-lifted staircase join and efficient relational query evaluation strategies for XQuery theta-joins with existential semantics. These contributions as well as the architectural lessons learned are also deemed valuable for other relational back-end engines. The performance and scalability of the resulting system is evaluated on the XMark benchmark up to data sizes of 11GB. The performance section also provides an extensive benchmark comparison of all major XMark results published previously, which confirm that the goal of purely relational XQuery processing, namely speed and scalability, was met
Temporal Stream Algebra
Data stream management systems (DSMS) so far focus on
event queries and hardly consider combined queries to both
data from event streams and from a database. However,
applications like emergency management require combined
data stream and database queries. Further requirements are
the simultaneous use of multiple timestamps after different
time lines and semantics, expressive temporal relations between multiple time-stamps and
exible negation, grouping
and aggregation which can be controlled, i. e. started and
stopped, by events and are not limited to fixed-size time
windows. Current DSMS hardly address these requirements.
This article proposes Temporal Stream Algebra (TSA) so
as to meet the afore mentioned requirements. Temporal
streams are a common abstraction of data streams and data-
base relations; the operators of TSA are generalizations of
the usual operators of Relational Algebra. A in-depth 'analysis of temporal relations guarantees that valid TSA expressions are non-blocking, i. e. can be evaluated incrementally.
In this respect TSA differs significantly from previous algebraic approaches which use specialized operators to prevent
blocking expressions on a "syntactical" level
Incremental View Maintenance For Collection Programming
In the context of incremental view maintenance (IVM), delta query derivation
is an essential technique for speeding up the processing of large, dynamic
datasets. The goal is to generate delta queries that, given a small change in
the input, can update the materialized view more efficiently than via
recomputation. In this work we propose the first solution for the efficient
incrementalization of positive nested relational calculus (NRC+) on bags (with
integer multiplicities). More precisely, we model the cost of NRC+ operators
and classify queries as efficiently incrementalizable if their delta has a
strictly lower cost than full re-evaluation. Then, we identify IncNRC+; a large
fragment of NRC+ that is efficiently incrementalizable and we provide a
semantics-preserving translation that takes any NRC+ query to a collection of
IncNRC+ queries. Furthermore, we prove that incremental maintenance for NRC+ is
within the complexity class NC0 and we showcase how recursive IVM, a technique
that has provided significant speedups over traditional IVM in the case of flat
queries [25], can also be applied to IncNRC+.Comment: 24 pages (12 pages plus appendix
On Region Algebras, XML Databases, and Information Retrieval
This paper describes some new ideas on developing a logical algebra for databases that manage textual data and support information retrieval functionality. We describe a first prototype of such a system
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