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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 59–63Cite as

Aggregation: Expressiveness and Containment

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Definition

An aggregate function is a function that receives as input a multiset of values, and returns a single value. For example, the aggregate function count returns the number of input values. An aggregate query is simply a query that mentions an aggregate function, usually as part of its output. Aggregate queries are commonly used to retrieve concise information from a database, since they can cover many data items, while returning few. Aggregation is allowed in SQL, and the addition of aggregation to other query languages, such as relational algebra and datalog, has been studied.

The problem of determining query expressiveness is to characterize the types of queries that can be expressed in a given query language. The study of query expressiveness for languages with aggregation is often focused on determining how aggregation increases the ability to formulate queries. It has been shown that relational algebra with aggregation (which models SQL) has a locality property.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Sara Cohen

Authors
  1. Sara Cohen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Cohen, S. (2009). Aggregation: Expressiveness and Containment. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_1256

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