Graph Pattern Matching in GQL and SQL/PGQ
Abstract
As graph databases become widespread, JTC1 -- the committee in joint charge of information technology standards for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) -- has approved a project to create GQL, a standard property graph query language. This complements a project to extend SQL with a new part, SQL/PGQ, which specifies how to define graph views over an SQL tabular schema, and to run read-only queries against them. Both projects have been assigned to the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC32 working group for Database Languages, WG3, which continues to maintain and enhance SQL as a whole. This common responsibility helps enforce a policy that the identical core of both PGQ and GQL is a graph pattern matching sub-language, here termed GPML. The WG3 design process is also analyzed by an academic working group, part of the Linked Data Benchmark Council (LDBC), whose task is to produce a formal semantics of these graph data languages, which complements their standard specifications. This paper, written by members of WG3 and LDBC, presents the key elements of the GPML of SQL/PGQ and GQL in advance of the publication of these new standards.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2112.06217,
title = {Graph Pattern Matching in GQL and SQL/PGQ},
author = {Alin Deutsch and Nadime Francis and Alastair Green and Keith Hare and Bei Li and Leonid Libkin and Tobias Lindaaker and Victor Marsault and Wim Martens and Jan Michels and Filip Murlak and Stefan Plantikow and Petra Selmer and Hannes Voigt and Oskar van Rest and Domagoj Vrgoč and Mingxi Wu and Fred Zemke},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.06217},
year = {2021}
}