Patent · US Active

Approximating query results by relations over types for error detection and optimization

US8332385B2 · kind B2 · utility

6Cited by
1References
31Claims
0Family size

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Key dates

Filing dateMar 11, 2009
Grant dateDec 11, 2012
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 12, 2031

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F16/2462
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and system is provided for computing an approximation of the results of a query. The approximation represents a superset of all possible results, by computing a set of records of types (as opposed to a set of records of values, which is the normal result of a query). This is different from conventional systems, which typically infer types for each field individually. For each record of types, one may also keep track of equalities of fields to improve the precision of the approximation. The approximation can be used to detect erroneous parts of queries that always return an empty result, regardless of the contents of the data source. Furthermore, the same approximation is also useful in performing optimizations: first, by eliminating parts of procedure calls that are guaranteed to be irrelevant to the calling context, and second, by eliminating unnecessary type tests in the query.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.