Query unnesting in object-oriented databases

Abstract

There is already a sizable body of proposals on OODB query optimization. One of the most challenging problems in this area is query unnesting, where the embedded query can take any form, including aggregation and universal quantification. Although there is already a number of proposed techniques for query unnesting, most of these techniques are applicable to only few cases. We believe that the lack of a general and simple solution to the query unnesting problem is due to the lack of a uniform algebra that treats all operations (including aggregation and quantification) in the same way. This paper presents a new query unnesting algorithm that generalizes many unnesting techniques proposed recently in the literature. Our system is capable of removing any form of query nesting using a very simple and efficient algorithm. The simplicity of the system is due to the use of the monoid comprehension calculus as an intermediate form for OODB queries. The monoid comphrehension calculus treats operations over multiple collection types, aggregates, and quantifiers in a similar way, resulting in a uniform way of unnesting queries, regardless of their type of nesting.