Query comprehensions

• US 20070050347A1
• Filed: 08/30/2005
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hejlsberg, Anders, Silver, Amanda, Johannes Maria Meijer, Henricus, Vick, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 7,730,079 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/332 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/968 interface for database querying and retrieval

Abstract

The subject disclosure pertains to interaction with one or more collections of data. Queries and domains are presented as separate entities. A number of compositional operators are provided to manipulate a generic collection of data at a low level. Query comprehensions can specify interactions with one or more collections at a higher or more intuitive level. The query comprehensions can be translated or mapped to operators that can be employed to interact with one or more data collections and return results where applicable.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented data query system comprising the following computer executable components:

a query component that receives a query comprehension; and

a translation component that translates the query comprehension into a set of one or more primitive operators.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a processor component that executes the query operators on a collection of data and returns results.

3. The system of claim 2, the translation component includes a map component that maps query comprehension elements to the one or more operators.

4. The system of claim 3, the translation component includes an inference component that infers types associated with query comprehension and/or operator elements based on context.

5. The system of claim 2, the collection of data is one of relational and XML data or objects.

6. The system of claim 2, the query comprehension is specified in a SQL style format and the processor component executes operators on a non-relational data collection.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising an abbreviation component that receives an abbreviation and translates the abbreviation into a query comprehension.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising a generation component that facilitates production of a user-defined abbreviation and a map component that persists mapping information with respect to the defined abbreviation and query comprehension elements.

9. The system of claim 7, the abbreviation denotes one or more of accumulation, aggregation, naming, grouping, ordering, mapping, flattening results, and a query fragment.

10. A computer-implemented query processing method comprising the following computer executable acts:

acquiring a query comprehension that specifies a query over a generic collection of data; and

translating the query comprehension to a set of one or more primitive operators that are able to interact with the collection.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising evaluating the one or more operators with respect to the data and returning results.

12. The method of claim 11, the operators retrieve data from one of a relational and XML source and objects.

13. The method of claim 11, the operators retrieve data from multiple sources.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

acquiring a query abbreviation; and

translating the query abbreviation to a query comprehension.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising receiving a user defined query abbreviation that maps to a query comprehension.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising type checking a query comprehension when the type of the collection is denoted explicitly and/or inferred.

17. The method of claim 16, type checking comprises statically type checking a query comprehension.

18. A computer-implemented data interaction system comprising:

a means for mapping a query comprehension to one or more primitive operators; and

a means for executing the operators on a data collection and returning results.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a means for translating an abbreviation to a query comprehension.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for providing and receiving query comprehensions within the system.