Title
Efficient reasoning about a robust XML key fragment
Abstract
We review key constraints in the context of XML as introduced by Buneman et al. We demonstrate that: (1) one of the proposed inference rules is not sound in general, and (2) the inference rules are incomplete for XML key implication, even for nonempty sets of simple key paths. This shows, in contrast to earlier statements, that the axiomatizability of XML keys is still open, and efficient algorithms for deciding their implication still need to be developed. Solutions to these problems have a wide range of applications including consistency validation, XML schema design, data exchange and integration, consistent query answering, XML query optimization and rewriting, and indexing. In this article, we investigate the axiomatizability and implication problem for XML keys with nonempty sets of simple key paths. In particular, we propose a set of inference rules that is indeed sound and complete for the implication of such XML keys. We demonstrate that this fragment is robust by showing the duality of XML key implication to the reachability problem of fixed nodes in a suitable digraph. This enables us to develop a quadratic-time algorithm for deciding implication, and shows that reasoning about this XML key fragment is practically efficient. Therefore, XML applications can be unlocked effectively since they benefit not only from those XML keys specified explicitly by the data designer but also from those that are specified implicitly.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1145/1538909.1538912
ACM Transactions on Database Systems
Keywords
DocType
Volume
xml key,xml query optimization,simple key path,implication,axiomatization,xml application,xml schema design,implication problem,reachability,robust xml key fragment,xml key fragment,efficient reasoning,xml key implication,nonempty set,inference rule,xml data
Journal
34
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
2
0362-5915
50
PageRank 
References 
Authors
1.19
35
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sven Hartmann140942.86
Sebastian Link218512.50