Implementation of Magic-sets in a Relational Database System

Summary: First implementation of the magic-sets transformation in a commercial relational DB (Starburst). Uses a cost-based join-order heuristic before magic, pushes all predicates via magic, and supports full SQL (duplicates, aggregation, nulls, subqueries) with extensibility for production-grade integration. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 2780
Venue: SIGMOD
Year: 1994
Pagerank: 7.2249961e-05
Overall Rank: 3,650 | 74.96%
DOI: 10.1145/191839.191860

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. Inderpal Singh Mumick (AT&T)
2. Hamid Pirahesh (IBM)

BibTeX Citation

@inproceedings{mumick_sigmod94,
        title = {{Implementation of Magic-sets in a Relational Database System}},
        author = {Mumick, Inderpal Singh and Pirahesh, Hamid},
        series = {{SIGMOD} '94},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} International Conference on Management of Data},
        publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
        doi = {10.1145/191839.191860},
        url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/191839.191860},
        year = {1994}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 12 of 12 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
290	An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems	1998	PODS	0.0002227038
1,037	Cost-Based Optimization for Magic: Algebra and Implementation	1996	SIGMOD	0.00012494928
1,979	Scalable Join Processing on Very Large RDF Graphs	2009	SIGMOD	9.3621296e-05
3,137	Pushing Data-Induced Predicates Through Joins in Big-Data Clusters	2020	VLDB	7.7204167e-05
7,035	Optimizing Recursive Queries with Program Synthesis	2022	SIGMOD	5.7216112e-05
7,079	Adding Magic to an Optimising Datalog Compiler	2008	SIGMOD	5.7090732e-05
8,115	Scaling a Declarative Cluster Manager Architecture with Query Optimization Techniques	2023	VLDB	5.4842672e-05
8,468	Making RDBMSs Efficient on Graph Workloads Through Predefined Joins	2022	VLDB	5.418656e-05
8,827	Compiling Query Constraints	1994	PODS	5.3615981e-05
9,960	Optimizing Nested Recursive Queries	2024	SIGMOD	5.1879626e-05
10,690	Dynamic Pruning for Recursive Joins	2025	SIGMOD	5.093636e-05
11,166	PLAQUE: Automated Predicate Learning at Query Time	2024	SIGMOD	5.093636e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 13 of 13 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	Access Path Selection in a Relational Database Management System	1979	SIGMOD	0.0024089429
16	MAGIC SETS AND OTHER STRANGE WAYS TO IMPLEMENT LOGIC PROGRAMS (Extended Abstract)	1986	PODS	0.00060089598
95	Of Nests and Trees: A Unified Approach to Processing Queries That Contain Nested Subqueries, Aggregates, and Quantifiers	1987	VLDB	0.00034607909
110	Extensible/Rule Based Query Rewrite Optimization in Starburst	1992	SIGMOD	0.0003309592
129	Optimization of Nested SQL Queries Revisited	1987	SIGMOD	0.0003068101
192	Grammar-like Functional Rules for Representing Query Optimization Alternatives	1988	SIGMOD	0.00026028406
527	The Magic of Duplicates and Aggregates	1990	VLDB	0.00017108864
1,012	Improved Unnesting Algorithms for Join Aggregate SQL Queries	1992	VLDB	0.00012682631
1,410	Magic is Relevant	1990	SIGMOD	0.00010853223
2,194	CORAL—Control, Relations and Logic	1992	VLDB	8.9724143e-05
3,307	Magic Conditions	1990	PODS	7.5385358e-05
3,430	Design and Implementation of the Glue-Nail Database System	1993	SIGMOD	7.4202634e-05
7,131	Magic-sets Transformation in Nonrecursive Systems	1992	PODS	5.694968e-05

Semantically Similar Papers

#	Overall Rank	Paper	Year	Venue
1	316	Measuring the Complexity of Join Enumeration in Query Optimization	1990	VLDB
2	1,590	Implementing Set-Oriented Production Rules as an Extension to Starburst	1991	VLDB
3	110	Extensible/Rule Based Query Rewrite Optimization in Starburst	1992	SIGMOD
4	527	The Magic of Duplicates and Aggregates	1990	VLDB
5	16	MAGIC SETS AND OTHER STRANGE WAYS TO IMPLEMENT LOGIC PROGRAMS (Extended Abstract)	1986	PODS
6	3,307	Magic Conditions	1990	PODS
7	7,079	Adding Magic to an Optimising Datalog Compiler	2008	SIGMOD
8	7,131	Magic-sets Transformation in Nonrecursive Systems	1992	PODS
9	1,037	Cost-Based Optimization for Magic: Algebra and Implementation	1996	SIGMOD
10	1,410	Magic is Relevant	1990	SIGMOD