Well-designed XML Data - dc.uba.ar · Well-designed XML Data Marcelo Arenas and Leonid Libkin...

Well-designed XML Data

Marcelo Arenas and Leonid Libkin

University of Toronto

Outline

Part 1 - Database Normalization from the 1970s and 1980s.

Part 2 - Classical theory revisited: normalizing XML documents.

Part 3 - Classical theory re-done: new justifications for normalization.

2

Part 1: Classical Normalization

Design: decide how to represent the information in a particular data model.

• Even for simple application domains there is a large number of ways of representing the data of interest.

We have to design the schema of the database.

• Set of relations.

• Set of attributes for each relation.

• Set of data dependencies.

3

Designing a Database: An Example

Attributes: number, title, section, room.

Data dependency: every course number is associated with only one title.

Relational Schema:

R(number, title, section, room),

number → title

T(number, section, room),

S(number, title), number → title

GOOD alternative:

4

BAD alternative:

Problems with BAD: Update Anomaly

GB2481Database SystemsCSC434

GB2483Computer OrganizationCSC258

GB2582Computer OrganizationCSC258

LP2661Computer OrganizationCSC258

roomsectiontitlenumber

Title of CSC258 is changed to Computer Organization I.

5

Problems with BAD: Update Anomaly


GB2483Computer Organization I

CSC258


CSC258

LP2661Computer Organization I

CSC258


Title of CSC258 is changed to Computer Organization I.The instance stores redundant information.

5

Deletion Anomaly



CSC258


CSC258


CSC258


CSC434 is not given in this term.

6

Deletion Anomaly


CSC258


CSC258


CSC258



Additional effect: all the information about CSC434 was deleted.

6

Insertion Anomaly


CSC258


CSC258


CSC258


A new course is created: (CSC336, Numerical Methods)

7

Insertion Anomaly


CSC258

??Numerical MethodsCSC336


CSC258


CSC258


A new course is created: (CSC336, Numerical Methods)The instance stores attributes that are not directly related.

7

Avoiding Update Anomalies

Database SystemsCSC434

Computer Organization

CSC258

titlenumber

GB2481CSC434

GB2483CSC258

GB2582CSC258

LP2661CSC258

roomsectionnumber

Title of CSC258 is changed to Computer Organization I.

8



Computer Organization I

CSC258

titlenumber

GB2481CSC434

GB2483CSC258

GB2582CSC258

LP2661CSC258

roomsectionnumber

Title of CSC258 is changed to Computer Organization I.CSC434 is not given in this term.

The instance does not store redundant information.

8




CSC258

titlenumber

GB2481CSC434

GB2483CSC258

GB2582CSC258

LP2661CSC258

roomsectionnumber


8




CSC258

titlenumber

GB2483CSC258

GB2582CSC258

LP2661CSC258

roomsectionnumber


The title of CSC434 is not removed from the instance.


8




CSC258

titlenumber

GB2483CSC258

GB2582CSC258

LP2661CSC258

roomsectionnumber


8


Database SystemsCSC434 Numerical MethodsCSC336


CSC258

titlenumber

GB2483CSC258

GB2582CSC258

LP2661CSC258

roomsectionnumber

A new course is created: (CSC336, Numerical Methods)No information about sections has to be provided.Each relation stores attributes that are directly related.

8

Normalization Theory

Main idea: a normal form defines a condition that a well designed database should satisfy.

Normal form: syntactic condition on the database schema.• Defined for a class of data dependencies.

Main problems:

• How to test whether a database schema is in a particular normal form.

• How to transform a database schema into an equivalent one satisfying a particular normal form.

9

Normalization Theory Today

Normalization theory for relational databases was developed in the 70s and 80s.

Why do we need normalization theory today?• New data models have emerged: XML.

• XML documents can contain redundant information.

Redundant information in XML documents:• Can be discovered if the user provides semantic

information.

• Can be eliminated.

10

Part 2: XML and Normalization

</courses>

</course>

</taken_by>

</student>

<grade> B+ </grade>

<name> Fox </name>

<student sno=“st1”>

<taken_by>

<course cno=“CSC258”>

<courses>

XML Document:

11


</courses>

</course>

</taken_by>

</student>

<grade> B+ </grade>

<name> Fox </name>


<taken_by>


<courses>

XML Document:

#PCDATA⇒grade

#PCDATA⇒name

name, grade

⇒student

@sno⇒student

student*⇒taken_by

taken_by⇒course

@cno⇒course

course*⇒courses

DTD:

11


</courses>

</course>

…


</course>

…


<courses>

XML Document:

#PCDATA⇒grade

#PCDATA⇒name

name, grade

⇒student

@sno⇒student

student*⇒taken_by

taken_by⇒course

@cno⇒course

course*⇒courses

DTD:

11


</courses>

</course>

</taken_by>

</student>

<grade> B+ </grade>

<name> Fox </name>


<taken_by>


<courses>

XML Document:

#PCDATA⇒grade

#PCDATA⇒name

name, grade

⇒student

@sno⇒student

student*⇒taken_by

taken_by⇒course

@cno⇒course

course*⇒courses

DTD:

11

XML Databases

D : Σ : Two students with the same @sno value must have the same name.

name, grade

⇒student

@sno⇒student

student*⇒taken_by

taken_by⇒course

@cno⇒course

course*⇒courses

12

XML Schema: (D, Σ)

Redundancy in XML

courses

coursecourse info

@cno @cno taken_bytaken_by

student student

@snoname gradegrade name@sno

student

name@sno

. . .

“st1” “st1” “A+”“B+”

“CSC258” “CSC434”

“Fox”“Fox”

“st1” “Fox”

13

XML Database Normalization

DTD: Data dependency:

Two students with the same @sno value must have the same name.

name, grade

⇒student

@sno⇒student

student*⇒taken_by

taken_by⇒course

@cno⇒course

course*⇒courses

14

XML Database Normalization

DTD:

, info* @sno is the identifier of info elements.

grade⇒student

@sno⇒student

student*⇒taken_by

taken_by

⇒course

@cno⇒course

course*⇒courses

name⇒info

@sno⇒info

Data dependency:

Two students with the same @sno value must have the same name.

14

A “Non-relational” Example

DBLP

conf conf

title issueissue

article articlearticle

@yeartitle title @year

@year

“ICDT”

@year

author @yeartitleauthor“1999”

“1999”

“1999”“Dong” “2001”“Jarke”

“2001”

“. . .” “. . .” “. . .”

15

XNF: XML Normal Form

It eliminates two types of anomalies.

It was defined for XML functional dependencies:

DBLP.conf.@title → DBLP.confDBLP.conf.issue →

DBLP.conf.issue.article.@year

16

Problems to Address

Functional dependencies for XML.

Normal form for XML documents (XNF).

•Generalizes BCNF.

Algorithm for normalizing XML documents.

•Implication problem for functional dependencies.

17

Framework: Paths in DTDs

Paths(D): all paths in a DTD Dcourses.course courses.course.@cnocourses.course.student.namecourses.course.student.name.S

EPaths(D): all paths in a DTD D that end with an element, for example, courses.course.

We distinguish three kinds of elements: attributes (@), strings (S) and element types.

FDs are defined by means of a relational representation of XML documents.

18

Framework: XML Trees

v1

v2

v3 v4

v5

v6 v7

v0

. . .

courses

coursecourse

@cno

“cs100”@sno name grade @sno name grade

student student

“123” “456”

“Fox” “B+” “Smith” “A”S S S S

19

Tree Tuples

v1

v2

v0

courses

course

@cno student

“cs100”

t(courses) = v0

t(courses.course) = v1

t(courses.course.@cno) = “cs100”t(courses.course.student) = v2

t(p) = ⊥, for the remaining paths

We consider tuples containing a minimal

amount of ⊥ values

Relational representation: tree tuples - mappings

t : Paths(D) → Vertices ∪ Strings ∪ {⊥}

A tree tuple represents an XML tree:

20

XML Tree: set of Tree Tuples

v1

v2

v3 v4

v5

v6 v7

v0

. . .

courses

coursecourse

@cno


student student

“123” “456”

“Fox” “B+” “Smith” “A”S S S S

v1

v2

courses

course

@cno

“cs100”

student

v0

v3 v4

@sno name grade

“123”

“Fox” “B+”S S

v5

v6 v7

@sno name grade

student

“456”

“Smith” “A”S S

. . .

course

21

Functional Dependencies for XML

Expressions of the form: X → Y

defined over a DTD D, where X, Y are finitenon-empty subsets of Paths(D).

XML tree T can be tested for satisfaction of X → Y if:

X ∪ Y ⊆ Paths(T) ⊆ Paths(D)

T |= X → Y if for every pair u, v of tree tuples in T:

u.X = v.X and u.X ≠ ⊥ implies u.Y = v.Y22

FD: Examples

University DTD: courses ⇒ course*course ⇒ @cno, student*student ⇒ @sno, name, grade

Two students with the same @sno value must have the same name:

courses.course.student.@sno → courses.course.student.name.S

Every student can have at most one grade in every course:

{ courses.course, courses.course.student.@sno } →

courses.course.student.grade.S

23

Implication Problem for FD

Given a DTD D and a set of functional dependencies Σ ∪ {ϕ}:

(D, Σ) |- ϕ (implies ϕ) if for any XML tree T conforming to D and satisfying Σ , it is the case that T |= ϕ

(D, Σ)+ = { ϕ | (D, Σ) |- ϕ }

Functional dependency ϕ is trivial if it is implied by the DTD alone.

24

Checking FD Satisfaction

v1

v2

v3 v4

v6

v7 v8

v0

courses

coursecourse

@cno


student

“123” “123”

“Fox” “B+” “Fox” “A+”S S S S

v5

@cno

“cs225”

studentv1

v2

v3 v4

v0

courses

course

@cno

“cs100”@sno name grade

student

“123”


v6

v7 v8

course

@sno name grade

“123”

“Fox” “A+”S S

v5

@cno

“cs225”

student

{ courses.course, courses.course.student.@sno } → courses.course.student.grade.S

Checking FD Satisfaction

v1

v2

v3 v4

v5

v6 v7

v0

courses

course

@cno


student

“123” “123”

“Fox” “B+” “Fox” “A+”S S S S

studentv1

v2

v3 v4

v0

courses

course

@cno

“cs100”@sno name grade

student

“123”


v5

v6 v7

@sno name grade

“123”

“Fox” “A+”S S

student

{ courses.course, courses.course.student.@sno } → courses.course.student.grade.S

XNF: XML Normal Form

XML specification: a DTD D and a set of functional dependencies Σ.

A Relational DB is in BCNF if for every non-trivial functional dependency X → Y in the specification, X is a key.

(D, Σ) is in XNF if:

For each non-trivial FD X → p.@l or X → p.S in (D, Σ)+, X → p is in (D, Σ)+.

25

Back to DBLP

DBLP is not in XNF:

DBLP.conf.issue → DBLP.conf.issue.article.@year ∈ (D,Σ)+

DBLP.conf.issue → DBLP.conf.issue.article ∉

(D,Σ)+

Proposed solution is in XNF.26

Normalization Algorithm

The algorithm applies two transformations until theschema is in XNF.

If there is an anomalous FD of the form:

DBLP.conf.issue → DBLP.conf.issue.article.@year

then apply the “DBLP example rule”.

Otherwise: choose a minimal anomalous FD and apply the “University example rule”.

27

Normalizing XML Documents

28

Remember:

DBLP.conf.issue[q] → DBLP.conf.issue.article.[p]@year

Normalizing XML Documents

28

Reasoning About FDs

28

Part 3: What was Missing? Justification!

What is a good database design?

• Well-known solutions: BCNF, 4NF, …

But what is it that makes a database design good?

• Elimination of update anomalies.

• Existence of algorithms that produce good designs: lossless decomposition, dependency preservation.

Previous work was specific for the relational model.

• Classical problems have to be revisited in the XML context.

29

Justification of Normal Forms

Problematic to evaluate XML normal forms.

• No XML update language has been standardized.

• No XML query language yet has the same “yardstick” status as relational algebra.

• We do not even know if implication of XML FDs is decidable!

We need a different approach.

• It must be based on some intrinsic characteristics of the data.

• It must be applicable to new data models.

• It must be independent of query/update/constraint issues.

Our approach is based on information theory. 30

Information Theory

Entropy measures the amount of information provided by a certain event.

Assume that an event can have n different outcomes with probabilities p1, …, pn.

Amount of information gained by knowing that event i occurred :Average amount of information gained (entropy) :

Entropy is maximal if each pi = 1/n :

31

log1pi

∑i = 1

n

p i log1pi

log n

Entropy and Redundancies

Database schema: R(A,B,C), A → B

Instance I:

Pick a domain properly containing adom(I) :• Probability distribution: P(4) = 0 and P(a) = 1/5, a ≠ 4

• Entropy: log 5 ≈ 2.322

421

321CBA

421

321CBA

421

21CBA

421

321CBA

42131

CBA

Pick a domain properly containing adom(I) : {1, …, 6}

• Probability distribution: P(2) = 1 and P(a) = 0, a ≠ 2

• Entropy: log 1 = 0

{1, …, 6}

32

Entropy and Normal Forms

Let Σ be a set of FDs over a schema S.

Theorem (S,Σ) is in BCNF if and only if for every instance of (S,Σ) and for every domain properly containing adom(I), each position carries non-zero amount of information (entropy > 0).

A similar result holds for 4NF and MVDs.

This is a clean characterization of BCNF and 4NF, but the measure is not accurate enough ...

33

Problems with the Measure

The measure cannot distinguish between different types of data dependencies.

It cannot distinguish between different instances of the same schema:

51

421

321

CBA

41

321

CBA

entropy = 0

R(A,B,C), A → B

entropy = 0

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Well-designed XML Data - dc.uba.ar · Well-designed XML Data Marcelo Arenas and Leonid Libkin...

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