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A Theoretical Framework for the Declarative Debugging of Datalog Programs

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Semantics in Data and Knowledge Bases (SDKB 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 4925))

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Abstract

The logic programming language Datalog has been extensively researched as a query language for deductive databases. Although similar to Prolog, the Datalog operational mechanisms are more intricate, leading to computations quite hard to debug by traditional approaches. In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for debugging Datalog programs based on the ideas of declarative debugging. In our setting, a debugging session starts when the user detects an unexpected answer for some query, and ends with the debugger pointing to either an erroneous predicate or to a set of mutually recursive predicates as the cause of the unexpected answer. Instead of representing the computations by means of trees, as usual in declarative debugging, we propose graphs as a more convenient structure in the case of Datalog, proving formally the soundness and completeness of the debugging technique. We also present a debugging tool implemented in the publicly available deductive database system DES following this theoretical framework.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Sistemas Informáticos y Computación, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

    R. Caballero & Y. García-Ruiz

  2. Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

    F. Sáenz-Pérez

Authors
  1. R. Caballero
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  2. Y. García-Ruiz
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  3. F. Sáenz-Pérez
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Information Science Research Centre, 20A Manapouri Cr, 4410, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Klaus-Dieter Schewe

  2. Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, 24098, Kiel, Germany

    Bernhard Thalheim

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Caballero, R., García-Ruiz, Y., Sáenz-Pérez, F. (2008). A Theoretical Framework for the Declarative Debugging of Datalog Programs. In: Schewe, KD., Thalheim, B. (eds) Semantics in Data and Knowledge Bases. SDKB 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4925. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88594-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88594-8_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-88593-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-88594-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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