Query Algebra for Semistuctured Data

Authors: Ei Ei Myat, Ni Lar Thein

Abstract:

With the tremendous growth of World Wide Web (WWW) data, there is an emerging need for effective information retrieval at the document level. Several query languages such as XML-QL, XPath, XQL, Quilt and XQuery are proposed in recent years to provide faster way of querying XML data, but they still lack of generality and efficiency. Our approach towards evolving a framework for querying semistructured documents is based on formal query algebra. Two elements are introduced in the proposed framework: first, a generic and flexible data model for logical representation of semistructured data and second, a set of operators for the manipulation of objects defined in the data model. In additional to accommodating several peculiarities of semistructured data, our model offers novel features such as bidirectional paths for navigational querying and partitions for data transformation that are not available in other proposals.

Keywords: Algebra, Semistructured data, Query Algebra.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1079372

References:

[1] S. Abiteboul, D. Quass, J. Mchugh, J. Widom, J. Wiener. The Lorel Query Language for Semistructured Data. Journal of Digital Libraries, l(l):68-88, April 1997..
[2] J. Mchugh, S. Abiteboul, R. Goldman, D. Quass, J. Widom. Lore: A Database Management System for Semistructured Data. SIGMOD Record, 26(3):54-66, September 1997.H. Poor, An Introduction to Signal Detection and Estimation. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1985, ch. 4.
[3] D. Quass, A. Rajaraman, Y. Sagiv, J. Ullman, J. Widom. Querying Semistructured Heterogeneous Information. Journal of Systems Integration, pp. 7(3/4):381-407, September 1997.
[4] World Wide Web Consortium. Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification. http://www. w3. org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1.
[5] World Wide Web Consortium. Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0, 1998. http://www. w3. org/TR/REC-xml.
[6] vidmar