TY - GEN
T1 - Worst-case optimal join algorithms
AU - Ngo, Hung Q.
AU - Porat, Ely
AU - Ré, Christopher
AU - Rudra, Atri
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Efficient join processing is one of the most fundamental and well-studied tasks in database research. In this work, we examine algorithms for natural join queries over many relations and describe a novel algorithm to process these queries optimally in terms of worst-case data complexity. Our result builds on recent work by Atserias, Grohe, and Marx, who gave bounds on the size of a full conjunctive query in terms of the sizes of the individual relations in the body of the query. These bounds, however, are not constructive: they rely on Shearer's entropy inequality which is information-theoretic. Thus, the previous results leave open the question of whether there exist algorithms whose running time achieve these optimal bounds. An answer to this question may be interesting to database practice, as we show in this paper that any project-join plan is polynomially slower than the optimal bound for some queries. We construct an algorithm whose running time is worst-case optimal for all natural join queries. Our result may be of independent interest, as our algorithm also yields a constructive proof of the general fractional cover bound by Atserias, Grohe, and Marx without using Shearer's inequality. In addition, we show that this bound is equivalent to a geometric inequality by Bollobás and Thomason, one of whose special cases is the famous Loomis-Whitney inequality. Hence, our results algorithmically prove these inequalities as well. Finally, we discuss how our algorithm can be used to compute a relaxed notion of joins.
AB - Efficient join processing is one of the most fundamental and well-studied tasks in database research. In this work, we examine algorithms for natural join queries over many relations and describe a novel algorithm to process these queries optimally in terms of worst-case data complexity. Our result builds on recent work by Atserias, Grohe, and Marx, who gave bounds on the size of a full conjunctive query in terms of the sizes of the individual relations in the body of the query. These bounds, however, are not constructive: they rely on Shearer's entropy inequality which is information-theoretic. Thus, the previous results leave open the question of whether there exist algorithms whose running time achieve these optimal bounds. An answer to this question may be interesting to database practice, as we show in this paper that any project-join plan is polynomially slower than the optimal bound for some queries. We construct an algorithm whose running time is worst-case optimal for all natural join queries. Our result may be of independent interest, as our algorithm also yields a constructive proof of the general fractional cover bound by Atserias, Grohe, and Marx without using Shearer's inequality. In addition, we show that this bound is equivalent to a geometric inequality by Bollobás and Thomason, one of whose special cases is the famous Loomis-Whitney inequality. Hence, our results algorithmically prove these inequalities as well. Finally, we discuss how our algorithm can be used to compute a relaxed notion of joins.
KW - bollobás-thomason inequality
KW - fractional cover bound
KW - join algorithms
KW - loomis-whitney inequality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862629195&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2213556.2213565
DO - 10.1145/2213556.2213565
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AN - SCOPUS:84862629195
SN - 9781450312486
T3 - Proceedings of the ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on Principles of Database Systems
SP - 37
EP - 48
BT - PODS '12 - Proceedings of the 31st Symposium on Principles of Database Systems
T2 - 31st ACM SIGMOD-SIGACT-SIGART Symposium on Principles of Database Systems, PODS '12
Y2 - 21 May 2012 through 23 May 2012
ER -