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Database Theory in Action: Evaluation of Aggregate Queries Without Materialisation

Authors Matthias Lanzinger , Reinhard Pichler , Alexander Selzer

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Information systems → Database query processing
Keywords
  • Join Processing
  • Aggregate Queries
  • Acyclic Conjunctive Queries

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Abstract

Aggregate queries often require computing large intermediate joins despite producing only small outputs. We identify broad classes of acyclic aggregate queries that can be evaluated without materialising any join results, using a bottom-up, semi-join–based propagation of cardinalities and partial aggregates. An implementation in Spark SQL shows that this approach is widely applicable and yields substantial performance gains on standard benchmarks.

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Matthias Lanzinger, Reinhard Pichler, and Alexander Selzer. Database Theory in Action: Evaluation of Aggregate Queries Without Materialisation. In 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 365, pp. 24:1-24:5, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.24

Author Details

Matthias Lanzinger
  • TU Wien, Austria
Reinhard Pichler
  • TU Wien, Austria
Alexander Selzer
  • TU Wien, Austria

Funding

This work has been supported by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) [10.47379/ICT2201, 10.47379/VRG18013].

Supplementary Materials

References

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