SYSTEM/U: a database system based on the universal relation assumption
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
NFQL: the natural forms query language
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
On the foundations of the universal relation model
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
Maximal objects and the semantics of universal relation databases
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
The entity-relationship model—toward a unified view of data
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS) - Special issue: papers from the international conference on very large data bases: September 22–24, 1975, Framingham, MA
The design and implementation of INGRES
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
FORMANAGER: an office forms management system
ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS)
Communications of the ACM
Implementation of a structured English query language
Communications of the ACM
Principles of Database Systems
Principles of Database Systems
SIGMOD '83 Proceedings of the 1983 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data
Form operation by example: a language for office information processing
SIGMOD '81 Proceedings of the 1981 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data
A form application development system
SIGMOD '82 Proceedings of the 1982 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data
Office form definition and processing using a relational data model
COCS '84 Proceedings of the second ACM-SIGOA conference on Office information systems
Theory of Relational Databases
Theory of Relational Databases
NFQL: the natural forms query language
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
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Forms are common and well understood in our modern society, especially in the office. They organize and structure communication according to well established and long standing convention. The Natural Forms Query Language (NFQL) takes advantage of these features to provide a “natural” communication language between computers and humans. Various facets of NFQL have been discussed elsewhere. In this paper we explore the retrieval power of NFQL. We explain why basic NFQL forms (which are essentially ordinary business forms) do not by themselves have enough retrieval power to be relationally complete. We then explain how to augment the notation to increase the retrieval power, and we provide an inductive proof to show that NFQL, as augmented, is relationally complete. Because additional notation may negatively effect usability, we discuss the pragmatics of adding new features. We explain how these features can be improved notationally, and argue that, with the improvements, we maintain the objective of being able to interpret standard forms, while increasing their retrieval power.