Understanding Queries by Conditional Instances

Amir Gilad, Zhengjie Miao, Sudeepa Roy, Jun Yang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

A powerful way to understand a complex query is by observing how it operates on data instances. However, specific database instances are not ideal for such observations: they often include large amounts of superfluous details that are not only irrelevant to understanding the query but also cause cognitive overload; and one specific database may not be enough. Given a relational query, is it possible to provide a simple and generic "representative'' instance that (1) illustrates how the query can be satisfied, (2) summarizes all specific instances that would satisfy the query in the same way by abstracting away unnecessary details? Furthermore, is it possible to find a collection of such representative instances that together completely characterize all possible ways in which the query can be satisfied? This paper takes initial steps towards answering these questions. We design what these representative instances look like, define what they stand for, and formalize what it means for them to satisfy a query in "all possible ways."We argue that this problem is undecidable for general domain relational calculus queries, and develop practical algorithms for computing a minimum collection of such instances subject to other constraints. We evaluate the efficiency of our approach experimentally, and show its effectiveness in helping users debug relational queries through a user study.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSIGMOD 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Management of Data
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages355-368
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781450392495
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Jun 2022
Externally publishedYes
Event2022 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on the Management of Data, SIGMOD 2022 - Virtual, Online, United States
Duration: 12 Jun 202217 Jun 2022

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data
ISSN (Print)0730-8078

Conference

Conference2022 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on the Management of Data, SIGMOD 2022
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVirtual, Online
Period12/06/2217/06/22

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 ACM.

Keywords

  • conditional tables
  • domain relational calculus
  • satisfying instances

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