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ESPRIT WG CONTESSA Workshop on Constraint Databases and Applications

CDB 1995: Constraint Databases and Application pp 22–39Cite as

On the expressiveness of first-order constraint languages

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1034))

Abstract

We investigate the expressive power of query languages for constraint databases. We examine languages over first order logic enhanced with the inequality constraint and linear constraints. We show that the query “one-line” is not expressible in FO+order (i.e. inequality constraint). In fact, the result is stronger in that we prove that it is not expressible in any higher order logic either. Furthermore, we show that the same query can be expressed in FO+linear by giving a non-trivial sentence that characterizes the class of databases consisting of exactly one line.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. N.T.U., Athens

    Foto Afrati, Theodoras Andronikos & Theodoros G. Kavalieros

Authors
  1. Foto Afrati
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  2. Theodoras Andronikos
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  3. Theodoros G. Kavalieros
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Editor information

Gabriel Kuper Mark Wallace

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Afrati, F., Andronikos, T., Kavalieros, T.G. (1996). On the expressiveness of first-order constraint languages. In: Kuper, G., Wallace, M. (eds) Constraint Databases and Application. CDB 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1034. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60794-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60794-3_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60794-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49456-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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