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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
0.00030320165
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 0.00055043581
50 DataGuides: Enabling Query Formulation and Optimization in Semistructured Databases 1997 VLDB 0.00043130126
141 Relational Databases for Querying XML Documents: Limitations and Opportunities 1999 VLDB 0.00029294114
247 Efficient Filtering of XML Documents for Selective Dissemination of Information 2000 VLDB 0.00023199427
326 Storing Semistructured Data with STORED 1999 SIGMOD 0.00020963333
356 Regular Path Queries with Constraints 1997 PODS 0.00020103855
441 A Fast Index for Semistructured Data 2001 VLDB 0.00018215078
465 Using Schema Matching to Simplify Heterogeneous Data Translation 1998 VLDB 0.00017785121
482 Query Optimization for XML 1999 VLDB 0.00017598607
662 Your Mediators Need Data Conversion! 1998 SIGMOD 0.00015001476
699 Query Containment for Conjunctive Queries With Regular Expressions 1998 PODS 0.00014686953
921 APEX: An Adaptive Path Index for XML Data 2002 SIGMOD 0.00013069413
1,251 Semistructured Data 1997 PODS 0.00011337126
1,258 Extracting Schema from Semistructured Data 1998 SIGMOD 0.00011306716
1,315 DTD Inference for Views of XML Data 2000 PODS 0.00011058412
1,330 Catching the Boat with Strudel: Experiences with a Web-Site Management System 1998 SIGMOD 0.00010999761
1,401 DTL’s DataSpot: Database Exploration Using Plain Language 1998 VLDB 0.00010774626
1,818 Deciding Containment for Queries with Complex Objects (Extended Abstract) 1997 PODS 9.5718481e-05
1,915 Formal Models of Web Queries 1997 PODS 9.3840448e-05
2,041 Rewriting of Regular Expressions and Regular Path Queries 1999 PODS 9.1421879e-05
2,127 Query Rewriting for Semistructured Data 1999 SIGMOD 9.0005009e-05
2,147 Query Decomposition and View Maintenance for Query Languages for Unstructured Data 1996 VLDB 8.9576491e-05
2,241 Querying Network Directories 1999 SIGMOD 8.7708234e-05
2,317 Type Inference for Queries on Semistructured Data (Extended Abstract) 1999 PODS 8.6477878e-05
2,763 Cut and Paste 1997 PODS 8.044061e-05
2,785 To Weave the Web 1997 VLDB 8.0177508e-05
3,184 Structure and Value Synopses for XML Data Graphs 2002 VLDB 7.5577589e-05
3,365 Path Constraints on Semistructured and Structured Data 1998 PODS 7.3728818e-05
3,420 Query Planning for Evaluating SPARQL Property Paths 2016 SIGMOD 7.3147525e-05
3,474 The Complexity of Evaluating Path Expressions in SPARQL 2012 PODS 7.2718547e-05
3,795 The Expressivity of XPath with Transitive Closure* 2006 PODS 7.0167646e-05
3,819 STRUDEL: A Web-site Management System 1997 SIGMOD 7.0060482e-05
4,266 A Web Odyssey: from Codd to XML 2001 PODS 6.6972871e-05
4,514 View-Based Query Containment 2003 PODS 6.5650143e-05
4,592 Queries with Incomplete Answers over Semistructured Data 1999 PODS 6.513694e-05
4,936 Colorful XML: One Hierarchy Isn't Enough 2004 SIGMOD 6.3464763e-05
5,050 On the Optimization of Recursive Relational Queries: Application to Graph Queries 2020 SIGMOD 6.2976106e-05
6,319 Containment of Nested XML Queries 2004 VLDB 5.8153622e-05
6,404 Constraint Satisfaction and Database Theory: a Tutorial 2000 PODS 5.796156e-05
6,497 Capturing and Querying Multiple Aspects of Semistructured Data 1999 VLDB 5.7653313e-05
6,887 Query Processing under GLAV Mappings for Relational and Graph Databases 2013 VLDB 5.6550447e-05
7,014 Views in a Large Scale XML Repository 2001 VLDB 5.6211051e-05
7,574 Computational Aspects of Resilient Data Extraction from Semistructured Sources 2000 PODS 5.493433e-05
8,049 On Views and XML 1999 PODS 5.4003954e-05
10,068 Type inference in the polymorphic relational algebra 1999 PODS 5.0873692e-05
12,456 Does Query Evaluation Tractability Help Query Containment? 2014 PODS 4.9793485e-05
13,146 Querying Websites Using Compact Skeletons 2001 PODS 4.9793485e-05
13,188 Using LDAP Directory Caches 1999 PODS 4.9793485e-05
13,221 DTL's DataSpot: Database Exploration as Easy as Browsing the Web... 1998 SIGMOD 4.9793485e-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
297 GraphLog: a Visual Formalism for Real Life Recursion 1990 PODS 0.00021840374
413 Querying Object-Oriented Databases 1992 SIGMOD 0.00018681401
904 F-Logic: A Higher-Order Language for Reasoning about Objects, Inheritance, and Scheme 1989 SIGMOD 0.00013171457
3,981 A Data Transformation System for Biological Data Sources 1995 VLDB 6.8772513e-05
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