How Can Reasoners Simplify Database Querying (And Why Haven't They Done It Yet)?

Abstract

The last few decades have seen vast progress in computational reasoning. This has included significant developments in theory, increasing maturity of tools both in performance and usability, and the evolution of standards and benchmarks. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the use of reasoning for rewriting and simplifying relational database queries. We undertake a review of some of the results and reasoning algorithms that have been developed with a motivation from query evaluation, and add to this a look at open problems in the area as well as a critique of prior work from the point of view of practice.