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Temporal Logic in Database Query Languages

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Encyclopedia of Database Systems

Definition

The term “temporal logic” is used in the area of formal logic, to describe systems for representing and reasoning about propositions and predicates whose truth depends on time. These systems are developed around a set of temporal connectives, such as sometime in the future or until, that provide implicit references to time instants. First-order temporal logic is a variant of temporal logic that allows first-order predicate (relational) symbols, variables, and quantifiers, in addition to temporal connectives. This logic can be used as a natural temporal query language for point-stamped temporal databases. A query (a temporal logic formula) is evaluated with respect to an evaluation point (time instant). Each such point determines a specific database snapshot that can be viewed as a relational database. Thus, the evaluation of temporal logic queries resembles the evaluation of first-order (relational calculus) queries equipped with an additional capability to “move” the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

    Jan Chomicki

  2. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    David Toman

Authors
  1. Jan Chomicki
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  2. David Toman
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jan Chomicki or David Toman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Richard T. Snodgrass

  2. Aalborg University, Aalborg Øst, Denmark

    Christian S. Jensen

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Chomicki, J., Toman, D. (2018). Temporal Logic in Database Query Languages. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_402

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