The t4sql temporal query language

ABSTRACT

Time characterizes every aspect of our life and its management when storing and querying data is very important. In this paper we propose a new temporal query language, called T4SQL, supporting multiple temporal dimensions of data. Besides the well-known valid and transaction times, it encompasses two additional temporal dimensions, namely, availability and event times. The availability time records when information is known and treated as true by the information system; the event times record the occurrence times of both the event that starts the valid time and the event that ends it. T4SQL is capable to deal with different temporal semantics (atemporal aka non-sequenced, current, sequenced, next) with respect to every temporal dimension. Moreover, T4SQL provides a novel temporal grouping clause and an orthogonal management of temporal properties when defining the selection condition(s) and the schema for the output relation.

References

1. Sharma Chakravarthy and Seung-Kyum Kim. Resolution of time concepts in temporal databases. Inf. Sci., 80(1-2):91--125, 1994.
2. Cindy Xinmin Chen, Jiejun Kong, and Carlo Zaniolo. Design and implementation of a temporal extension of SQL. In Umeshwar Dayal, Krithi Ramamritham, and T. M. Vijayaraman, editors, ICDE, pages 689--691. IEEE Computer Society, 2003.
3. Carlo Combi and Angelo Montanari. Data models with multiple temporal dimensions: Completing the picture. In Klaus R. Dittrich, Andreas Geppert, and Moira C. Norrie, editors, CAiSE, volume 2068 of LNCS, pages 187--202. Springer, 2001.
4. Andrew Eisenberg and Jim Melton. SQL standardization: The next steps. SIGMOD Record, 29(1):63--67, 2000.
5. Christian S. Jensen et al. The consensus glossary of temporal database concepts - February 1998 version. In Temporal Databases, Dagstuhl, pages 367--405, 1998.
6. Fabio Grandi, Federica Mandreoli, and Paolo Tiberio. Temporal specialization and generalization. Data & Knowl. Eng., 54:327--354, 2005.
7. James Green and Roger Johnson. ProSQL: A prototyping tool for SQL temporal language extensions. In Anne E. James, Brian Lings, and Muhammad Younas, editors, BNCOD, volume 2712 of LNCS, pages 190--197. Springer, 2003.
8. Keith W. Hare. JCC's SQL standards page. (accessed: September 1, 2006). http://www.jcc.com/sql.htm, February, 2006.
9. Christian S. Jensen and Richard T. Snodgrass. Temporal specialization and generalization. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 6(6):954--974, 1994.
10. Gultekin Özsoyoglu and Richard T. Snodgrass. Temporal and real-time databases: A survey. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 7(4):513--532, 1995.
11. Richard T. Snodgrass, editor. The TSQL2 Temporal Query Language. Kluwer, 1995.
12. Richard T. Snodgrass. Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2000.
13. Richard T. Snodgrass, Michael H. Böhlen, Christian S.Jensen, and Andreas Steiner. Transitioning temporal support in TSQL2 to SQL3. In Temporal Databases, Dagstuhl, pages 150--194, 1997.
14. Jose Ramon Rios Viqueira and Nikos A. Lorentzos. SQL extension for spatio-temporal data. VLDB Journal, 16(2):179--200, 2007.
15. Esteban Zimányi. Temporal aggregates and temporal universal quantification in standard SQL. SIGMOD Record, 35(2):16--21, 2006.

Index Terms

• Information systems

  • Data management systems

    • Database design and models

    • Query languages