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Consistency of XML Specifications

  • Chapter
Inconsistency Tolerance

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3300))

Abstract

Specifications of XML documents typically consist of typing information (for example, a DTD), and integrity constraints (for example, keys and foreign keys). We show that combining the two may lead to seemingly reasonable specifications that are nevertheless inconsistent: there is no XML document that both conforms to the DTD and satisfies the constraints. We then survey results on the complexity of consistency checking, and show that, depending on the classes of DTDs and constraints involved, it ranges from linear time to undecidable. Furthermore, we show that for some of the most common classes of specifications checking consistency is intractable.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada

    Marcelo Arenas & Leonid Libkin

  2. University of Edinburgh & Bell Laboratories, UK

    Wenfei Fan

Authors
  1. Marcelo Arenas
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  2. Wenfei Fan
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  3. Leonid Libkin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Leopoldo Bertossi

  2. Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

    Anthony Hunter

  3. Institut für Informatik, Universität Potsdam, August-Bebel-Str. 89, D-14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Torsten Schaub

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Arenas, M., Fan, W., Libkin, L. (2005). Consistency of XML Specifications. In: Bertossi, L., Hunter, A., Schaub, T. (eds) Inconsistency Tolerance. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3300. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30597-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30597-2_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-24260-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30597-2

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