Well-definedness and semantic type-checking for the nested relational calculus

  • Authors:

  • Jan Van den Bussche;Dirk Van Gucht;Stijn Vansummeren

  • Affiliations:

  • Hasselt University and Transnational University of Limburg, Agoralaan, Gebouw D, B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium;Indiana University, Computer Science Department, Lindley Hall 215, 150 S. Woodlawn Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405-710, USA;Hasselt University and Transnational University of Limburg, Agoralaan, Gebouw D, B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium

  • Venue:
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2007

Quantified Score

Hi-index 5.23

Visualization

Abstract

The well-definedness problem for a programming language consists of checking, given an expression and an input type, whether the semantics of the expression is defined for all inputs adhering to the input type. A related problem is the semantic type-checking problem which consists of checking, given an expression, an input type, and an output type whether the expression always returns outputs adhering to the output type on inputs adhering to the input type. Both problems are undecidable for general-purpose programming languages. In this paper we study these problems for the Nested Relational Calculus, a specific-purpose database query language. We also investigate how these problems behave in the presence of programming language features such as singleton coercion and type tests.