Querying structured documents with hypertext links using OODBMS

ABSTRACT

Hierarchical logical structure and hypertext links are complementary and can be combined to build more powerful document management systems. Previous work exploits this complementarity for building better document processors, browsers and editing tools, but not for building sophisticated querying mechanisms. Querying in hypertext has been a requirement since [19] and has already been elaborated in many hypertext systems, but has not yet been used for hypertext systems superimposed on an underlying hierarchical logical structure.In this paper we use the model and the SQL-like query language of [10] in order to manage structured documents with hypertext links. The model represents a structured documents with hypertext links. The model represents a structured document with typed links as a complex object, and uses paths through the document structure, as first class citizens in formulating queries. Several examples of queries illustrate, from a practical point of view, the expressive power of the language to retrieve documents, even without exact knowledge of their structure in a simple and homogeneous fashion. It must be stressed that the proposed model and language implement the equivalent HyTime Location Address Module. In fact, the language is more powerful than the corresponding HyQ query facilities. The implementation and the description throughout the paper use the SGML standard to represent the document structure and the object-oriented DBMS O2 to implement the query language and the storage module.

REFERENCES

• 1: ISO/IEC 10744. information Technology- Hypermedia~ime-based Structuring Language (HyTime), 1992.
• 2: ISO 8879. Information Processing- Text and Office Systems- Standard Generalized Markup Language (S- GML), 1986.
• 3: Robert M. Akscyn , Donald L. McCracken , Elise A. Yoder, KMS: a distributed hypermedia system for managing knowledge in organizations, Communications of the ACM, v.31 n.7, p.820-835, July 1988 [doi>10.1145/48511.48513]
• 4: Bernd Amann , Michel Scholl, Gram: a graph data model and query languages, Proceedings of the ACM conference on Hypertext, p.201-211, November 30-December 04, 1992, Milan, Italy [doi>10.1145/168466.168527]
• 5: Bernd Amann , Michel Scholl , Antoine Rizk, Querying typed hypertexts in Multicard/O2, Proceedings of the 1994 ACM European conference on Hypermedia technology, p.198-205, September 19-23, 1994, Edinburgh, Scotland [doi>10.1145/192757.192831]
• 6: François Bancilhon , Sophie Cluet , C. Delobel, A query language for the O2 object-oriented databases, Proceedings of the second international workshop on Database programming languages, p.122-138, December 1989, Salishan Lodge, Gleneden Beach, Oregon, United States
• 7: Catriel Beeri , Yoram Kornatzky, A logical query language for hypertext systems, Hypertext: concepts, systems and applications, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1992
• 8: AIS Berger-Levrault. SGML/Search, Description du Langage. Internal Document, 34 Avenue du Roule 92200 Neuilly sur Seine, 1993.
• 9: Forbes J. Burkowski, An algebra for hierarchically organized text-dominated databases, Information Processing and Management: an International Journal, v.28 n.3, p.333-348, 1992 [doi>10.1016/0306-4573(92)90079-F]
• 10: V. Christophides , S. Abiteboul , S. Cluet , M. Scholl, From structured documents to novel query facilities, Proceedings of the 1994 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data, p.313-324, May 24-27, 1994, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
• 11: M. P. Consens , A. O. Mendelzon, Expressing structural hypertext queries in graphlog, Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Hypertext, p.269-292, November 1989, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/74224.74247]
• 12: O. Deux et al., The Story of O2, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, v.2 n.1, p.91-108, March 1990 [doi>10.1109/69.50908]
• 13: EBT. DynaText. Product Reference Manuel, 1994.
• 14: Euroclid. Le Parseur SGML d'Euroclid. Internal Document, 12, Avenue des Prds 78180 Montigny le Bretonneux, 199 I.
• 15: Franca Garzotto , Paolo Paolini , Daniel Schwabe, HDM—a model for the design of hypertext applications, Proceedings of the third annual ACM conference on Hypertext, p.313-328, December 15-18, 1991, San Antonio, Texas, United States [doi>10.1145/122974.123004]
• 16: Charles F. Goldfarb, The SGML handbook, Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, NY, 1991
• 17: Marc Gyssens , Jan Paredaens , Dirk van Gucht, A graph-oriented object database model, Proceedings of the ninth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART symposium on Principles of database systems, p.417-424, April 02-04, 1990, Nashville, Tennessee, United States [doi>10.1145/298514.298593]
• 18: Frank G. Halasz , Thomas P. Moran , Randall H. Trigg, Notecards in a nutshell, Proceedings of the SIGCHI/GI conference on Human factors in computing systems and graphics interface, p.45-52, April 05-09, 1987, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 19: Frank,G. Halasz, Reflections on NoteCards: seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems, Communications of the ACM, v.31 n.7, p.836-852, July 1988 [doi>10.1145/48511.48514]
• 20: W. Eliot Kimber. HyTime and SGML: Understanding the HyTime HyQ Query Language. Availiable via anonymous ftp at ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/I-{yTime, August 1993.
• 21: Dario Lucarella , Stefano Parisotto , Antonella Zanzi, MORE: Multimedia Object Retrieval Environment, Proceedings of the fifth ACM conference on Hypertext, p.39-50, November 14-18, 1993, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/168750.168766]
• 22: I. A. Macleod, Storage and retrieval of structured documents, Information Processing and Management: an International Journal, v.26 n.2, p.197-208, 1990 [doi>10.1016/0306-4573(90)90025-W]
• 23: Jocelyne Nanard , Marc Nanard, Using structured types to incorporate knowledge in hypertext, Proceedings of the third annual ACM conference on Hypertext, p.329-343, December 15-18, 1991, San Antonio, Texas, United States [doi>10.1145/122974.123006]
• 24: Vincent Quint , Irène Vatton, Combining hypertext and structured documents in Grif, Proceedings of the ACM conference on Hypertext, p.23-32, November 30-December 04, 1992, Milan, Italy [doi>10.1145/168466.168482]
• 25: P. D. Stotts and R. Furuta. Hypertext 2000: Databases or Documents? Electronic Publishing, 4(2):1119-121, June 1991.
• 26: P. David Stotts , Richard Furuta , J. Cyrano Ruiz, Hyperdocuments as automata: trace-based browsing property verification, Proceedings of the ACM conference on Hypertext, p.272-281, November 30-December 04, 1992, Milan, Italy [doi>10.1145/168466.171515]
• 27: O2 Technology. The 02 User's Manual, version 4.4, December 1993.
• 28: A. M. Vercoustre. Structured Editing - Hypertext Approach: Cooperation and Complementarity. In EP'90, pages 65-78. Cambridge University Press, September 1990.
• 29: P. T. Zellweger, Scripted documents: a hypermedia path mechanism, Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Hypertext, p.1-14, November 1989, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/74224.74225]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Query formulation

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Hypertext navigation and maps**

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.7 DOCUMENT AND TEXT PROCESSING
      I.7.2 Document Preparation
          Subjects: Languages and systems

General Terms:
Design, Languages

Keywords:
hypertexts, information retrieval, object oriented databases, path expressions, query languages, structured documents