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On the complexity of nested-object matching

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Abstract

Query languages for “object-oriented data models” involvematching ofnested-objects or nested-terms. Nested-objects are extended first-order terms: with sets and tuples as the only constructors (no function symbols). This paper studies the complexity of nested-term matching. The main result is the following complete characterization. Letset-nesting index (tuples-nesting index) denote the “level” of set nesting (tuple nesting) of a nested-term; letS i,j denote the set of all nested-terms with set-indexi and tuple-indexj. Then,the matching problem for a given class S i,j is NP-Complete if either i⩾2,or i>0and j>0;otherwise, the complexity of the matching problem for S i,j is in PTIME. We compare our work with the related work on set-matching, and show that our results yield an alternative proof, using fewer interpreted symbols, for the NP-completeness of the set-matching problem.

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  1. Department of Computer Engineering and Science, Case Western Reserve University, 10900, Euclid Avenue, 44106, Cleveland, OH

    Kumar V. Vadaparty

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  1. Kumar V. Vadaparty
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Correspondence to Kumar V. Vadaparty.

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Vadaparty, K.V. On the complexity of nested-object matching. J Autom Reasoning 14, 317–323 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881860

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