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A Query Language and Optimization Techniques for Unstructured Data

Summary: UnQL: a query language for rooted, edge-labeled graphs modeling unstructured data; relational data are representable as fixed-depth trees. Supports arbitrarily deep data and cycles beyond path expressions; efficient evaluation uses vertical optimization with relational-style optimizers on the horizontal dimension. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID
hd9b695c9d6face82
Venue
SIGMOD
Year
1996
Pagerank
0.00030306096
Overall Rank
130 | 99.13%
DOI
10.1145/233269.233368

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

BibTeX Citation

@inproceedings{buneman_sigmod96,
        title = {{A Query Language and Optimization Techniques for Unstructured Data}},
        author = {Buneman, Peter and Davidson, Susan and Hillebrand, Gerd and Suciu, Dan},
        series = {{SIGMOD} '96},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} International Conference on Management of Data},
        publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
        doi = {10.1145/233269.233368},
        url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/233269.233368},
        year = {1996}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 49 of 49 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
24 Data Integration: A Theoretical Perspective 2002 PODS 0.00055018384
50 DataGuides: Enabling Query Formulation and Optimization in Semistructured Databases 1997 VLDB 0.0004311045
141 Relational Databases for Querying XML Documents: Limitations and Opportunities 1999 VLDB 0.0002928095
247 Efficient Filtering of XML Documents for Selective Dissemination of Information 2000 VLDB 0.00023188523
326 Storing Semistructured Data with STORED 1999 SIGMOD 0.00020953829
356 Regular Path Queries with Constraints 1997 PODS 0.0002009439
441 A Fast Index for Semistructured Data 2001 VLDB 0.00018206766
465 Using Schema Matching to Simplify Heterogeneous Data Translation 1998 VLDB 0.00017776926
482 Query Optimization for XML 1999 VLDB 0.00017590408
664 Your Mediators Need Data Conversion! 1998 SIGMOD 0.00014994399
699 Query Containment for Conjunctive Queries With Regular Expressions 1998 PODS 0.00014680086
922 APEX: An Adaptive Path Index for XML Data 2002 SIGMOD 0.0001306334
1,254 Semistructured Data 1997 PODS 0.00011331788
1,259 Extracting Schema from Semistructured Data 1998 SIGMOD 0.00011301861
1,315 DTD Inference for Views of XML Data 2000 PODS 0.00011053178
1,330 Catching the Boat with Strudel: Experiences with a Web-Site Management System 1998 SIGMOD 0.00010994625
1,401 DTL’s DataSpot: Database Exploration Using Plain Language 1998 VLDB 0.00010769602
1,818 Deciding Containment for Queries with Complex Objects (Extended Abstract) 1997 PODS 9.5674072e-05
1,917 Formal Models of Web Queries 1997 PODS 9.3796466e-05
2,043 Rewriting of Regular Expressions and Regular Path Queries 1999 PODS 9.1379399e-05
2,128 Query Rewriting for Semistructured Data 1999 SIGMOD 8.9984814e-05
2,149 Query Decomposition and View Maintenance for Query Languages for Unstructured Data 1996 VLDB 8.9534973e-05
2,242 Querying Network Directories 1999 SIGMOD 8.7667135e-05
2,319 Type Inference for Queries on Semistructured Data (Extended Abstract) 1999 PODS 8.6436947e-05
2,764 Cut and Paste 1997 PODS 8.0402621e-05
2,785 To Weave the Web 1997 VLDB 8.0139609e-05
3,185 Structure and Value Synopses for XML Data Graphs 2002 VLDB 7.5542356e-05
3,367 Path Constraints on Semistructured and Structured Data 1998 PODS 7.3693945e-05
3,422 Query Planning for Evaluating SPARQL Property Paths 2016 SIGMOD 7.3112898e-05
3,474 The Complexity of Evaluating Path Expressions in SPARQL 2012 PODS 7.2684123e-05
3,798 The Expressivity of XPath with Transitive Closure* 2006 PODS 7.0134429e-05
3,820 STRUDEL: A Web-site Management System 1997 SIGMOD 7.0027332e-05
4,266 A Web Odyssey: from Codd to XML 2001 PODS 6.6941178e-05
4,516 View-Based Query Containment 2003 PODS 6.5619066e-05
4,594 Queries with Incomplete Answers over Semistructured Data 1999 PODS 6.5106109e-05
4,939 Colorful XML: One Hierarchy Isn't Enough 2004 SIGMOD 6.343473e-05
5,054 On the Optimization of Recursive Relational Queries: Application to Graph Queries 2020 SIGMOD 6.2946294e-05
6,323 Containment of Nested XML Queries 2004 VLDB 5.8126093e-05
6,406 Constraint Satisfaction and Database Theory: a Tutorial 2000 PODS 5.7934139e-05
6,500 Capturing and Querying Multiple Aspects of Semistructured Data 1999 VLDB 5.7626024e-05
6,891 Query Processing under GLAV Mappings for Relational and Graph Databases 2013 VLDB 5.6523677e-05
7,015 Views in a Large Scale XML Repository 2001 VLDB 5.618446e-05
7,580 Computational Aspects of Resilient Data Extraction from Semistructured Sources 2000 PODS 5.4908332e-05
8,055 On Views and XML 1999 PODS 5.3978399e-05
10,073 Type inference in the polymorphic relational algebra 1999 PODS 5.0849609e-05
12,462 Does Query Evaluation Tractability Help Query Containment? 2014 PODS 4.9769913e-05
13,152 Querying Websites Using Compact Skeletons 2001 PODS 4.9769913e-05
13,194 Using LDAP Directory Caches 1999 PODS 4.9769913e-05
13,227 DTL's DataSpot: Database Exploration as Easy as Browsing the Web... 1998 SIGMOD 4.9769913e-05
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 4 of 4 cited papers.

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

Rank Cited Paper Year Venue Pagerank
298 GraphLog: a Visual Formalism for Real Life Recursion 1990 PODS 0.00021830158
414 Querying Object-Oriented Databases 1992 SIGMOD 0.00018672651
905 F-Logic: A Higher-Order Language for Reasoning about Objects, Inheritance, and Scheme 1989 SIGMOD 0.00013165264
3,982 A Data Transformation System for Biological Data Sources 1995 VLDB 6.8742381e-05
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