A Formal Semantics of SQL Queries, Its Validation, and Applications
Summary: Formal, real-SQL semantics for SELECT-FROM-WHERE with subqueries, bag semantics, and nulls; includes data-model and variable-name handling; validated on many random queries. Applications: SQL ≡ relational algebra under bag/null semantics; 3-valued logic not needed; all fragment queries eval under two-valued semantics. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)
Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time
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Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 10 of 10 citing papers.
| Rank | Citing Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 789 | Cypher: An Evolving Query Language for Property Graphs | 2018 | SIGMOD | 0.00016634256 |
| 2,099 | Axiomatic Foundations and Algorithms for Deciding Semantic Equivalences of SQL Queries | 2018 | VLDB | 9.5479391e-05 |
| 2,596 | WeTune: Automatic Discovery and Verification of Query Rewrite Rules | 2022 | SIGMOD | 8.4729982e-05 |
| 5,243 | QED: A Powerful Query Equivalence Decider for SQL | 2024 | VLDB | 5.6071695e-05 |
| 6,781 | SQL Nulls and Two-Valued Logic | 2023 | PODS | 4.927459e-05 |
| 7,726 | Semantic Conformance Testing of Relational DBMS | 2025 | VLDB | 4.6667388e-05 |
| 8,068 | Updating Graph Databases with Cypher | 2019 | VLDB | 4.5934689e-05 |
| 10,917 | TypeQL: A Type-Theoretic & Polymorphic Query Language | 2024 | PODS | 4.1945683e-05 |
| 10,995 | Understanding and Reusing Test Suites Across Database Systems | 2024 | SIGMOD | 4.1945683e-05 |
| 11,161 | Querying Incomplete Numerical Data: Between Certain and Possible Answers | 2023 | PODS | 4.1945683e-05 |
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 3 of 3 cited papers.
Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.
| Rank | Cited Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,057 | Cosette: An Automated Prover for SQL | 2017 | CIDR | 0.0001439886 |
| 2,395 | Algebraic Properties of Bag Data Types | 1991 | VLDB | 8.8998019e-05 |
| 5,857 | Making SQL Queries Correct on Incomplete Databases: A Feasibility Study | 2016 | PODS | 5.3000054e-05 |
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Semantically Similar Papers
| Overall Rank | Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,759 | On Relational Algebra With Marked Nulls | 1984 | PODS | 5.9416104e-05 |
| 12,847 | Investigation of Algebraic Query Optimisation for Database Programming Languages | 1994 | VLDB | 4.1945683e-05 |
| 12,297 | Equivalence of SQL Queries In Presence of Embedded Dependencies | 2009 | PODS | 4.1945683e-05 |
| 6,710 | Schema-free SQL | 2014 | SIGMOD | 4.9526147e-05 |
| 4,346 | Languages for Relational Databases over Interpreted Structures | 1997 | PODS | 6.2725564e-05 |
| 6,781 | SQL Nulls and Two-Valued Logic | 2023 | PODS | 4.927459e-05 |
| 5,195 | Equivalence of Queries Combining Set and Bag-Set Semantics | 2006 | PODS | 5.6366303e-05 |
| 2,099 | Axiomatic Foundations and Algorithms for Deciding Semantic Equivalences of SQL Queries | 2018 | VLDB | 9.5479391e-05 |
| 7,773 | Formal Semantics and Analysis of Object Queries | 2003 | SIGMOD | 4.655071e-05 |
| 963 | Null Values in Data Base Management: A Denotational Semantics Approach | 1979 | SIGMOD | 0.00014980053 |