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@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/vldb/Gregor85,
author = {Robert M. MacGregor},
editor = {Alain Pirotte and
Yannis Vassiliou},
title = {ARIEL - A Semantic Front-End to Relational DBMSs},
booktitle = {VLDB'85, Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Very
Large Data Bases, August 21-23, 1985, Stockholm, Sweden},
publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann},
year = {1985},
pages = {305-315},
ee = {db/conf/vldb/Gregor85.html},
crossref = {DBLP:conf/vldb/85},
bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}
}
This paper introduces the query language ARIEL,a language which retains the formal precision of relational languages such as SQL and QUEL, while exploiting the greater expressiveness of a semantic data model. ARIEL has been implemented as a front-end query language to several relational database systems, including to a front-end distributed DBMS being developed at SDC.
The most noteworthy elements of ARIEL are (1) a flexible syntax for expressing subqueries, (2) a convenient way to express "outer-joins" within a non-procedural framework (without the use of"'null values"), (3) a comprehensive set of rules for defining the semantics of "reference chains", (4)a "light-weight" view mechanism, and (5) a clean semantics for expressing aggregate functions, especially in combination with the "group by" operator.
Copyright © 1985 by the VLDB Endowment. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by the permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or special permission from the Endowment.
