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Measuring the Complexity of Join Enumeration in Query Optimization

Summary: Introduces Starburst to measure and tune the optimizer's join-search space by enabling/disabling composite tables and Cartesian joins. Analytic counts match experiments; linear chain queries are polynomial-time via DP (System R/R*), while non-linear shapes blow up combinatorially. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID
7953
Venue
VLDB
Year
1990
Pagerank
0.00023669348
Overall Rank
423 | 97.06%
DOI
-

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

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Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 42 of 42 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
285 Automating Physical Database Design in a Parallel Database 2002 SIGMOD 0.0002899128
339 Optimization of Dynamic Query Evaluation Plans 1994 SIGMOD 0.00026851113
454 An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems 1998 PODS 0.00022734812
870 Query Optimization in the Presence of Limited Access Patterns 1999 SIGMOD 0.00015771912
907 Fundamental Techniques for Order Optimization 1996 SIGMOD 0.00015435983
978 Rapid Bushy Join-order Optimization with Cartesian Products 1996 SIGMOD 0.00014881073
1,826 Analysis of Two Existing and One New Dynamic Programming Algorithm for the Generation of Optimal Bushy Join Trees without Cross Products 2006 VLDB 0.00010400425
1,927 Reusing Invariants: A New Strategy for Correlated Queries 1998 SIGMOD 0.00010062716
2,044 Optimization of Multi-Way Join Queries for Parallel Execution 1991 VLDB 9.6953608e-05
2,050 Optimal Top-Down Join Enumeration 2007 SIGMOD 9.6886663e-05
2,263 Extending the Search Strategy in a Query Optimizer 1991 VLDB 9.1612588e-05
2,659 Multi-Objective Parametric Query Optimization 2015 VLDB 8.3604734e-05
2,785 Counter Strike: Generic Top-Down Join Enumeration for Hypergraphs 2013 VLDB 8.1286814e-05
2,869 The Complexity of Transformation-Based Join Enumeration 1997 VLDB 7.9808408e-05
2,916 Quantifying TPC-H Choke Points and Their Optimizations 2020 VLDB 7.9068048e-05
2,925 Shared Workload Optimization 2014 VLDB 7.888494e-05
3,048 Fast, Randomized Join-Order Selection — Why Use Transformations? 1994 VLDB 7.6543116e-05
3,120 Holistic Twig Joins on Indexed XML Documents 2003 VLDB 7.5295938e-05
3,154 The MemSQL Query Optimizer: A modern optimizer for real-time analytics in a distributed database 2016 VLDB 7.4686089e-05
3,404 EROC: A Toolkit for Building NEATO Query Optimizers 1996 VLDB 7.1321923e-05
3,422 Multi-Join Optimization for Symmetric Multiprocessors 1993 VLDB 7.1134801e-05
3,474 Solving the Join Ordering Problem via Mixed Integer Linear Programming 2017 SIGMOD 7.0625972e-05
3,560 Counting, Enumerating, and Sampling of Execution Plans in a Cost-Based Query Optimizer 2000 SIGMOD 6.9723858e-05
3,727 Cost-based or Learning-based? A Hybrid Query Optimizer for Query Plan Selection 2022 VLDB 6.8141709e-05
4,261 Parallelizing Query Optimization 2008 VLDB 6.31244e-05
4,397 Estimating Compilation Time of a Query Optimizer 2003 SIGMOD 6.2230918e-05
4,511 Of Snowstorms and Bushy Trees 2014 VLDB 6.1247645e-05
4,738 Query Simplification: Graceful Degradation for Join-Order Optimization 2009 SIGMOD 5.9600502e-05
5,194 Bitvector-aware Query Optimization for Decision Support Queries 2020 SIGMOD 5.6368209e-05
6,334 Dependency-Aware Reordering for Parallelizing Query Optimization in Multi-Core CPUs 2009 SIGMOD 5.1058462e-05
6,443 Optimizing Join Enumeration in Transformation-based Query Optimizers 2014 VLDB 5.0599139e-05
6,543 On the Complexity of Generating Optimal Plans with Cross Products (extended abstract) 1997 PODS 5.0208799e-05
8,164 Efficiently Computing Join Orders with Heuristic Search 2023 SIGMOD 4.5718104e-05
8,194 The Fittest Survives: An Adaptive Approach to Query Optimization 1995 VLDB 4.5618179e-05
8,213 On the Calculation of Optimality Ranges for Relational Query Execution Plans 2018 SIGMOD 4.557937e-05
8,659 Learned Offline Query Planning via Bayesian Optimization 2025 SIGMOD 4.4722928e-05
9,305 Parallelizing Query Optimization on Shared-Nothing Architectures 2016 VLDB 4.3577129e-05
9,957 How to Optimize SQL Queries? A Comparison Between Split, Holistic, and Hybrid Approaches 2025 VLDB 4.2373024e-05
10,987 DPconv: Super-Polynomially Faster Join Ordering 2024 SIGMOD 4.1945683e-05
11,624 Towards Multi-way Join Aware Optimizer in SAP HANA 2020 VLDB 4.1945683e-05
11,725 Errata for "Analysis of two existing and one new dynamic programming algorithm for the generation of optimal bushy join trees without cross products" 2018 VLDB 4.1945683e-05
12,745 TOPAZ: a Cost-Based, Rule-Driven, Multi-Phase Parallelizer 1998 VLDB 4.1945683e-05
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 7 of 7 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 0.0040449103
143 Optimization of Nonrecursive Queries 1986 VLDB 0.00041510555
219 Grammar-like Functional Rules for Representing Query Optimization Alternatives 1988 SIGMOD 0.00033244259
387 Optimization of Large Join Queries 1988 SIGMOD 0.0002471967
1,702 An Architecture For Query Optimization 1982 SIGMOD 0.0001085438
2,775 Optimization of Nested Queries in a Distributed Relational Database 1984 VLDB 8.1334572e-05
4,099 Implementing an Interpreter for Functional Rules in a Query Optimizer 1988 VLDB 6.4545871e-05
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Overall Rank Paper Year Venue Pagerank
978 Rapid Bushy Join-order Optimization with Cartesian Products 1996 SIGMOD 0.00014881073
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4,738 Query Simplification: Graceful Degradation for Join-Order Optimization 2009 SIGMOD 5.9600502e-05
7,166 Ranked Enumeration of Join Queries with Projections 2022 VLDB 4.8124491e-05
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2,044 Optimization of Multi-Way Join Queries for Parallel Execution 1991 VLDB 9.6953608e-05
71 How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really? 2016 VLDB 0.00059038975
4,397 Estimating Compilation Time of a Query Optimizer 2003 SIGMOD 6.2230918e-05
2,869 The Complexity of Transformation-Based Join Enumeration 1997 VLDB 7.9808408e-05