{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,15]],"date-time":"2026-09-15T01:17:21Z","timestamp":1789435041202,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,28]],"date-time":"2025-04-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1745798400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["SIGMOD Rec."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,28]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Comparing relational languages by their logical expressiveness is well understood. Less understood is how to compare relational languages by their ability to represent relational query patterns. Indeed, what are query patterns other than ''a certain way of writing a query''? And how can query patterns be defined across procedural and declarative languages, irrespective of their syntax?<\/jats:p>\n          <jats:p>Our SIGMOD 2024 paper proposes a semantic definition of relational query patterns that uses a variant of structurepreserving mappings between the relational tables of queries. This formalism allows us to analyze the relative pattern expressiveness of relational languages. Notably, for the nondisjunctive language fragment, we show that relational calculus (RC) can express a larger class of patterns than the basic operators of relational algebra (RA).<\/jats:p>\n          <jats:p>We also propose Relational Diagrams, a complete and sound diagrammatic representation of safe relational calculus. These diagrams can represent all query patterns for unions of non-disjunctive queries, in contrast to visual query representations that derive visual marks from the basic operators of algebra. Our anonymously preregistered user study shows that Relational Diagrams allow users to recognize relational patterns meaningfully faster and more accurately than they can with SQL.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3733620.3733637","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,29]],"date-time":"2025-04-29T16:20:07Z","timestamp":1745943607000},"page":"80-88","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Relational Diagrams and the Pattern Expressiveness of Relational Languages"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"54","author":[{"given":"Wolfgang","family":"Gatterbauer","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cody","family":"Dunne","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","volume-title":"https:\/\/www.mturk.com","author":"Amazon Mechanical","year":"2023","unstructured":"Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). https:\/\/www.mturk.com, 2023."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jvlc.1997.0037"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1951365.1951440"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2026"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","volume-title":"An introduction to database systems. Pearson\/Addison Wesley Longman","author":"Date C. J.","year":"2003","unstructured":"C. J. Date. An introduction to database systems. Pearson\/Addison Wesley Longman, 8th edition, 2003. url: https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.5555\/861613.","edition":"8"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5555\/2842853"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4419-8047-2"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICDE60146.2024.00407"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.48550\/ARXIV.2412.08583"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.14778\/3611540.3611578"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.14778\/340275"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3639316"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","unstructured":"W. Gatterbauer and C. Dunne. Supplemental material for \"On the reasonable effectiveness of relational diagrams\""},{"issue":"3","key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","first-page":"47","article-title":"Principles of query visualization","volume":"45","author":"Gatterbauer W.","year":"2022","unstructured":"W. Gatterbauer, C. Dunne, H. V. Jagadish, and M. Riedewald. Principles of query visualization. IEEE Data Eng. Bull., 45(3):47--67, 2022. url: http:\/\/site s.computer.org\/debull\/A22sept\/p47.pdf.","journal-title":"IEEE Data Eng. Bull."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2532641"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3318464.3389767"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","volume-title":"Pattern","year":"2025","unstructured":"Merriam-Webster.com. Pattern, 2025.url: https:\/\/w ww.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/pattern."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/VL\/HCC51201.2021.9576431"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","volume-title":"EBNF: a notation to describe syntax. htt ps:\/\/ics.uci.edu\/pattis\/misc\/ebnf2.pdf","author":"Pattis R. E.","year":"2013","unstructured":"R. E. Pattis. EBNF: a notation to describe syntax. htt ps:\/\/ics.uci.edu\/pattis\/misc\/ebnf2.pdf, 2013. (accessed on September 21, 2021)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/000271623417400185"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5555\/560733"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_22_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/356835.356837"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_23_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0898--1221(92)90127--4"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_24_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_25_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO97805115746"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_26_1","volume-title":"Database System Concepts","author":"Silberschatz A.","year":"2020","unstructured":"A. Silberschatz, H. F. Korth, and S. Sudarshan. Database System Concepts. McGraw-Hill, 7th edition, 2020. url: https:\/\/www.db-book.com\/db7\/index.html.","edition":"7"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_27_1","volume-title":"IBM Res. Rep. RC 5866","author":"Thomas J. C.","year":"1976","unstructured":"J. C. Thomas. Quantifiers and question-asking. Technical report, IBM Res. Rep. RC 5866, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, 1976. url: https : \/ \/ apps . dtic . mil \/ sti \/ tr \/ pdf \/ADA043032.pdf."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_28_1","volume-title":"Computer Science Press","author":"Ullman J. D.","year":"1988","unstructured":"J. D. Ullman. Principles of Database and Knowledgebase Systems, Vol. I. Computer Science Press, Inc., 1988. url: https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/book\/10.5555\/42790."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_29_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/319628.319656"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_30_1","volume-title":"Categorical proposition \u2014 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia","author":"Wikipedia","year":"2025","unstructured":"Wikipedia contributors. Categorical proposition \u2014 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2025. url: https:\/\/e n.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Categorical proposition. [Online; accessed March-2025]."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_31_1","volume-title":"Software design pattern \u2014 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia","author":"Wikipedia","year":"2025","unstructured":"Wikipedia contributors. Software design pattern \u2014 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2025. url: https:\/\/e n.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Software design pattern. [Online; accessed February-2025]."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_32_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1147\/sj.164.0324"}],"container-title":["ACM SIGMOD Record"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3733620.3733637","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/3733620.3733637","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,19]],"date-time":"2025-06-19T01:56:55Z","timestamp":1750298215000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3733620.3733637"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,28]]},"references-count":32,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,28]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/3733620.3733637"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3733620.3733637","relation":{},"ISSN":["0163-5808"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0163-5808","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,28]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2025-04-29","order":3,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}