Query Reasoning on Trees with Types, Interleaving, and Counting

Abstract

A major challenge of query language design is the combination of expressivity with effective static analyses such as query containment. In the setting of XML, documents are seen as finite trees, whose structure may additionally be constrained by type constraints such as those described by an XML schema. We consider the problem of query containment in the presence of type constraints for a class of regular path queries extended with counting and interleaving operators. The counting operator restricts the number of occurrences of children nodes satisfying a given logical property. The interleaving operator provides a succinct notation for describing the absence of order between nodes satisfying a logical property. We provide a logic-based framework supporting these operators, which can be used to solve common query reasoning problems such as satisfiability and containment of queries in exponential time.