Optimizing the Performance of a Relational Algebra Database Interface

Summary: Proposes SQUIRAL, a smart interface using automatic programming to analyze and refine high-level user queries into efficient relational algebra plans. Demonstrates optimization techniques from this approach to boost interface-driven query performance. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 2069
Venue: SIGMOD
Year: 1975
Pagerank: 0.00017144967
Overall Rank: 519 | 96.45%
DOI: 10.1145/500080.500090

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. John Miles Smith (University of Utah)
2. Philip Yen-Tang Chang (University of Utah)

BibTeX Citation

@inproceedings{smith_sigmod75,
        title = {{Optimizing the Performance of a Relational Algebra Database Interface}},
        author = {Smith, John Miles and Chang, Philip Yen-Tang},
        series = {{SIGMOD} '75},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} International Conference on Management of Data},
        publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
        doi = {10.1145/500080.500090},
        url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/500080.500090},
        year = {1975}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 18 of 18 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
119	The EXODUS Optimizer Generator	1987	SIGMOD	0.0003183602
320	Evaluation of Database Access Paths	1978	SIGMOD	0.00021373172
1,586	An Algebra Of Quotient Relations	1977	SIGMOD	0.00010282631
1,650	Some Experimental Results on Distributed Join Algorithms in a Local Network	1985	VLDB	0.00010115373
1,887	Extending the Algebraic Framework of Query Processing to Handle Outerjoins	1984	VLDB	9.5347906e-05
1,893	CS2: A New Database Synopsis for Query Estimation	2013	SIGMOD	9.5269935e-05
2,845	A New Way to Compute the Product and Join of Relations	1980	SIGMOD	8.060155e-05
3,770	Design Considerations for Data-flow Database Machines	1980	SIGMOD	7.1392128e-05
5,046	Toward Practical Constraint Databases	1993	VLDB	6.3879316e-05
5,123	Complexity Bounds for Relational Algebra over Document Spanners	2019	PODS	6.3571407e-05
5,352	Range Nesting: A Fast Method To Evaluate Quantified Queries	1983	SIGMOD	6.2528892e-05
5,632	Extending the Relational Algebra to Support Transaction Time	1987	SIGMOD	6.1421602e-05
6,072	Towards an Efficient Evaluation of General Queries: Quantifier and Disjunction Processing Revisited	1989	SIGMOD	5.9870797e-05
7,858	Optimization of Multiple-Relation Multiple-Disjunct Queries	1988	PODS	5.5305813e-05
8,122	A Formal Model of Trade-off between Optimization and Execution Costs in Semantic Query Optimization	1988	VLDB	5.4831648e-05
10,096	Out-of-order Execution of Database Queries	2020	VLDB	5.1523392e-05
13,224	Local and Global Query Optimization Mechanisms for Relational Databases	1985	VLDB	5.093636e-05
13,276	Evaluation of Transmission Requirements in Distributed Database Access	1979	SIGMOD	5.093636e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 0 of 0 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank

Semantically Similar Papers

#	Overall Rank	Paper	Year	Venue
1	615	A Rule-Based View of Query Optimization	1987	SIGMOD
2	2,104	Optimization of Multi-Way Join Queries for Parallel Execution	1991	VLDB
3	2,198	A Recursive Algebra and Query Optimization for Nested Relations	1989	SIGMOD
4	1,073	A General Framework for the Optimization of Object-Oriented Queries	1992	SIGMOD
5	13,224	Local and Global Query Optimization Mechanisms for Relational Databases	1985	VLDB
6	3,889	On Efficiently Implementing SchemaSQL on a SQL Database System	1999	VLDB
7	143	Optimization of Nonrecursive Queries	1986	VLDB
8	7,137	Rule-Based Translation of Relational Queries into Iterative Programs	1986	SIGMOD
9	1,860	Querying Multiple Features of Groups in Relational Databases	1996	VLDB
10	290	An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems	1998	PODS