Towards a Logical Semantics for Referential Actions in SQL
Bertram Ludäscher, Wolfgang May, Joachim Reinert
Abstract. We investigate a logical semantics which
unambiguously specifies the meaning of SQL-like referential actions of
the form ON DELETE CASCADE and ON DELETE RESTRICT. The semantics is
given by a translation of referential actions into logical rules. The
proposed semantics is less restrictive than the standard SQL
semantics, yet preserves all referential integrity constraints.
First, a preliminary set of rules is introduced which rejects a set of
user requests if a single request is rejected. Subsequently, a
refined translation is presented using Statelog, a
state-oriented Datalog extension which allows to define active and
deductive rules within a unified framework. We show that our semantics
yields the maximal admissible subset of a given set of user requests.
Apart from the Statelog formalization, a three-valued formalization
based on the well-founded semantics and an equivalent game-theoretic
specification are presented, which give further insight into the
problem of ambiguity of triggers.
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