A logical query language for hypermedia systems

Catriel Beeri*, Yoram Kornatzky

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hypermedia systems store interlinked collections of information of various media such as text, image, voice and animation. Such interlinked collections of information, called hyperdocuments, generalize conventional paper documents by directly representing the conceptual structure of the information, a graph whose nodes represent information chunks and whose links represent the organizational structure of the information. The search capabilities of current hypermedia systems are limited to retrieving individual nodes and links based on predicates on their local attributes and contents. To support sophisticated applications and user-tailored views of a hyperdocument, we need a query language able to retrieve parts of a hyperdocument based on a specification of their structure. We present a logical query language permitting the formulation of such structural queries over hyperdocuments. The language is based on prepositional modal logic and admits a simple and efficient implementation over available hypermedia storage systems. While the language is propositional, it includes a general notion of quantifier of the form appropriate for hyperdocument graphs; quantifiers are used for expressing assertions of the form: "For most paths from the current node, claim X holds.".

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-37
Number of pages37
JournalInformation Sciences
Volume77
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1994

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