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Conjunctive query containment over trees using schema information

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Abstract

We study the containment, satisfiability, and validity problems for conjunctive queries over trees with respect to a schema. We show that conjunctive query containment and validity are 2EXPTIME -complete with respect to a schema, in both cases where the schema is given as a DTD or as a tree automaton. Furthermore, we show that satisfiability for conjunctive queries with respect to a schema can be decided in NP . The problem is NP -hard already for queries using only one kind of axis. Finally, we consider conjunctive queries that can test for equalities and inequalities of data values. Here, satisfiability and validity are decidable, but containment is undecidable, even without schema information. On the other hand, containment with respect to a schema becomes decidable again if the “larger” query is not allowed to use both equalities and inequalities.

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Notes

  1. We do not require CQs to be in prenex normal form. However, all formulas that we construct in the paper can be put in prenex normal form by simply renaming the variables and moving the quantifiers.

  2. Notice that, as stated in the introduction, we assume that trees only take labels from a finite alphabet \(\varSigma \). Hence, for a conjunctive query Q, the set L(Q) also consists of trees over alphabet \(\varSigma \). In the rare cases where we consider trees without schema information, we state this explicitly.

  3. Transforming an NTA to a reduced NTA can be done in polynomial time by first performing an emptiness test for every state of A, followed by a reachability test. Section 4.2 of [35] describes an algorithm for reducing a DTD. The algorithm for NTAs is analogous.

  4. To the best of our knowledge, the full proof is unpublished. For the convenience of our readers, we provide Wood’s proof, which he kindly provided in a personal communication.

  5. We assume \(\varDelta \) to contain all the data values we use in our proofs and examples.

  6. This definition is done with the proof of Theorem 23 in the back of our minds and therefore more complicated than a reader might have expected. In this proof, the reader should think of \(x'\) and \(y'\) as being mapped to the same node.

  7. Of course, the resulting equality atoms can be removed by suitable variable renaming.

  8. For the purpose of the reduction, a node v of the query is a leaf node if and only if the query does not have any atom of the form \(\textit{Child}\,(v,w)\) or \(\textit{Child}\,^+(v,w)\).

  9. We can assume w.l.o.g. that the free variables are the same in P and Q.

  10. Here, structural constraints include node identities and VBCs allow comparison of data values to constants.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grant number MA 4938/2-1 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Emmy Noether Nachwuchsgruppe) and the Swedish Research Council Grant 621-2011-6080.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Henrik Björklund

  2. Institut für Informatik, Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Wim Martens

  3. Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

    Thomas Schwentick

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  1. Henrik Björklund
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  2. Wim Martens
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  3. Thomas Schwentick
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Correspondence to Wim Martens.

Additional information

A preliminary version of this work was presented at the 33rd International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science.

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Björklund, H., Martens, W. & Schwentick, T. Conjunctive query containment over trees using schema information. Acta Informatica 55, 17–56 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00236-016-0282-1

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