English

Solving equations in the relational algebra

Logic in Computer Science 2007-05-23 v2 Databases

Abstract

Enumerating all solutions of a relational algebra equation is a natural and powerful operation which, when added as a query language primitive to the nested relational algebra, yields a query language for nested relational databases, equivalent to the well-known powerset algebra. We study \emph{sparse} equations, which are equations with at most polynomially many solutions. We look at their complexity, and compare their expressive power with that of similar notions in the powerset algebra.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cs/0106034,
  title  = {Solving equations in the relational algebra},
  author = {Joachim Biskup and Jan Paredaens and Thomas Schwentick and Jan Van den Bussche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cs/0106034},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Minor revision, accepted for publication in SIAM Journal on Computing