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GraphLog: a Visual Formalism for Real Life Recursion

Summary: Introduces GraphLog, a visual query language where queries are graph patterns and query edges denote edges or regular-expression-qualified paths, enabling natural expression of recursion over graph data. Shows GraphLog’s power equals stratified linear Datalog, FO+transitive closure and NLOGSPACE (with ordering), and describes extensions for aggregates and path summarization plus a prototype. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID
hfac4045c4360b689
Venue
PODS
Year
1990
Pagerank
0.00021766741
Overall Rank
299 | 98.00%
DOI
10.1145/298514.298591

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

BibTeX Citation

@inproceedings{consens_pods90,
        address = {New York, NY, USA},
        series = {{PODS} '90},
        title = {{GraphLog: a Visual Formalism for Real Life Recursion}},
        url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/298514.298591},
        doi = {10.1145/298514.298591},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} Symposium on {Principles} of {Database} {Systems}},
        publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
        author = {Consens, Mariano P. and Mendelzon, Alberto O.},
        year = {1990}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 34 of 34 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
131 A Query Language and Optimization Techniques for Unstructured Data 1996 SIGMOD 0.000302173
288 Graphs-at-a-time: Query Language and Access Methods for Graph Databases 2008 SIGMOD 0.00022009138
358 Regular Path Queries with Constraints 1997 PODS 0.00020030407
420 Cypher: An Evolving Query Language for Property Graphs 2018 SIGMOD 0.00018489392
585 From Structured Documents to Novel Query Facilities 1994 SIGMOD 0.00015926244
719 Querying Graph Databases 2013 PODS 0.00014493767
1,326 DTD Inference for Views of XML Data 2000 PODS 0.0001101664
1,352 GraphDB: Modeling and Querying Graphs in Databases 1994 VLDB 0.00010913807
1,474 Expressive Languages for Path Queries over Graph-Structured Data 2010 PODS 0.00010526746
1,560 Joining Extractions of Regular Expressions 2018 PODS 0.00010212902
2,043 Rewriting of Regular Expressions and Regular Path Queries 1999 PODS 9.1266211e-05
2,259 Querying Network Directories 1999 SIGMOD 8.7384901e-05
2,646 Optimizing Queries on Files 1994 SIGMOD 8.157239e-05
3,483 The Complexity of Evaluating Path Expressions in SPARQL 2012 PODS 7.2450764e-05
4,025 Hy+: A Hygraph-based Query and Visualization System 1993 SIGMOD 6.8334545e-05
4,572 GQL and SQL/PGQ: Theoretical Models and Expressive Power 2025 VLDB 6.514625e-05
4,938 Horton+: A Distributed System for Processing Declarative Reachability Queries over Partitioned Graphs 2013 VLDB 6.3327465e-05
4,965 Colorful XML: One Hierarchy Isn't Enough 2004 SIGMOD 6.3225096e-05
4,989 GPC: A Pattern Calculus for Property Graphs 2023 PODS 6.3121508e-05
5,073 On the Optimization of Recursive Relational Queries: Application to Graph Queries 2020 SIGMOD 6.2738154e-05
5,122 Querying Graph Patterns 2011 PODS 6.2506877e-05
5,574 Representing Paths in Graph Database Pattern Matching 2023 VLDB 6.0628579e-05
5,631 The G+/GraphLog Visual Query System 1990 SIGMOD 6.0408952e-05
6,734 G-SQL: Fast Query Processing via Graph Exploration 2016 VLDB 5.6786954e-05
7,163 Semantic Acyclicity on Graph Databases 2013 PODS 5.5797798e-05
7,461 Conjunctive Regular Path Queries with String Variables 2020 PODS 5.5066099e-05
7,572 TriAL for RDF: Adapting Graph Query Languages for RDF Data 2013 PODS 5.4773124e-05
9,012 DOODLE: A Visual Language for Object-Oriented Databases 1992 SIGMOD 5.2235929e-05
9,071 GBLENDER: Towards Blending Visual Query Formulation and Query Processing in Graph Databases 2010 SIGMOD 5.2118226e-05
10,462 A Logical View of GNN-Style Computation and the Role of Activation Functions 2026 PODS 4.9605343e-05
11,249 Dangers of List Processing in Querying Property Graphs 2025 SIGMOD 4.9605343e-05
12,568 Spanners: A Formal Framework for Information Extraction 2013 PODS 4.9605343e-05
13,376 Database Graph Views: A Practical Model to Manage Persistent Graphs 1994 VLDB 4.9605343e-05
13,461 Factoring Augmented Regular Chain Programs 1990 VLDB 4.9605343e-05
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 8 of 8 cited papers.

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

Rank Cited Paper Year Venue Pagerank
179 Decidability And Expressiveness Aspects Of Logic Queries 1987 PODS 0.00026563438
368 Object Identity As A Query Language Primitive 1989 SIGMOD 0.00019850502
637 Parallel Evaluation of Recursive Rule Queries 1986 PODS 0.00015323882
638 LDL: A Logic-Based Data-Language 1986 VLDB 0.0001531355
1,592 Finding Regular Simple Paths in Graph Databases 1989 VLDB 0.0001010713
2,078 One-Sided Recursions 1987 PODS 9.0607099e-05
2,126 A Study of Transitive Closure As a Recursion Mechanism 1987 SIGMOD 8.9903441e-05
3,772 Neptune: a Hypertext System for CAD Applications 1986 SIGMOD 7.0120585e-05
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Semantically Similar Papers

# Overall Rank Paper Year Venue
1 561 A New Approach to Database Logic 1984 PODS
2 4,858 Graph Queries in a Next-Generation Datalog System 2013 VLDB
3 8,160 On the First-Order Expressibility of Recursive Queries 1989 PODS
4 288 Graphs-at-a-time: Query Language and Access Methods for Graph Databases 2008 SIGMOD
5 1,474 Expressive Languages for Path Queries over Graph-Structured Data 2010 PODS
6 8,074 IDLOG: Extending the Expressive Power of Deductive Database Languages 1990 SIGMOD
7 10,954 FlowLog: Efficient and Extensible Datalog via Incrementality 2026 VLDB
8 5,631 The G+/GraphLog Visual Query System 1990 SIGMOD
9 9,647 A Theory of Regular Queries 2016 PODS
10 306 A Graphical Query Language Supporting Recursion 1987 SIGMOD