Finitely representable databases (extended abstract)

  • Authors:

  • Stéphane Grumbach;Jianwen Su

  • Affiliations:

  • I.N.R.I.A., Rocquencourt BP 105, 78153 Le Chesnay, France;Computer Science Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California

  • Venue:
  • PODS '94 Proceedings of the thirteenth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART symposium on Principles of database systems
  • Year:
  • 1994

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Abstract

We study classes of infinite but finitely representable databases based on constraints, motivated by new database applications such as geographical databases. The mathematical framework is based on classical decidable first-order theories. We investigate the theory of finitely representable models and prove that it differs strongly from both classical model theory and finite model theory. In particular, we show that most of the well known theorems of either one fail (compactness, completeness, locality, 0/1 laws, etc.). An immediate consequence is the lack of tools to consider the definability of queries in the relational calculus over finitely representable databases. We illustrate this very challenging problem through some classical examples.