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Processing XPath Expressions in Relational Databases

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SOFSEM 2004: Theory and Practice of Computer Science (SOFSEM 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2932))

Abstract

Research on processing XML documents gained much activity in recent times. XML query languages are mostly based on XPath expressions, which are used to select parts of XML documents. So, methods defining semantics for XPath expressions are of special importance. In the paper we propose a relational semantics for XPath expressions. The semantics consists of four semantic functions defined over specific categories of XPath expressions and over contexts determined by the current state of computation. The definition is all sound, complete and expressive. We show that semantic functions can be naturally encoded in SQL and used to query XML documents stored in relational database. Some relevant optimization problems are also discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Control and Information Engineering, Poznan University of Technology, Poland

    Tadeusz Pankowski

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  1. Tadeusz Pankowski
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Sciences, ILLC - Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 24, 1018 TV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter Van Emde Boas

  2. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague

    Jaroslav Pokorný

  3. Institute of Informatics and Software Engineering Faculty of Informatics and Information technologies, Slovak University of Technology, Ilkovičova 3, 842 16, Bratislava

    Mária Bieliková

  4. Institute of Computer Science, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Pod Vodárenskou věží 2, 182 07, Prague 8 Czech Republic

    Július Štuller

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Pankowski, T. (2004). Processing XPath Expressions in Relational Databases. In: Van Emde Boas, P., Pokorný, J., Bieliková, M., Štuller, J. (eds) SOFSEM 2004: Theory and Practice of Computer Science. SOFSEM 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2932. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24618-3_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24618-3_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20779-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24618-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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