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Database Theory in Action: From Inexpressibility to Efficiency in GQL’s Order-Constrained Paths

Authors Hadar Rotschield , Liat Peterfreund

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Theory of computation → Database theory
  • Information systems → Graph-based database models
  • Information systems → Query languages
Keywords
  • Property graphs
  • ISO GQL
  • Graph Query Languages
  • Pattern Matching

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Abstract

Pattern matching of core GQL, the new ISO standard for querying property graphs, cannot check whether edge values are increasing along a path, as established in recent work. We present a constructive translation that overcomes this limitation by compiling the increasing-edges condition into the input graph. Remarkably, the benefit of this construction goes beyond restoring expressiveness. In our proof-of-concept implementation in Neo4j’s Cypher, where such path constraints are expressible but costly, our compiled version runs faster and avoids timeouts. This illustrates how a theoretically motivated translation can not only close an expressiveness gap but also bring practical performance gains.

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Hadar Rotschield and Liat Peterfreund. Database Theory in Action: From Inexpressibility to Efficiency in GQL’s Order-Constrained Paths. In 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 365, pp. 26:1-26:5, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.26

Author Details

Hadar Rotschield
  • School of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Liat Peterfreund
  • School of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Funding

Both authors were supported by ISF grant 2355/24.

Supplementary Materials

References

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    Software Heritage Logo archived version
    full metadata available at: https://doi.org/10.4230/artifacts.25284
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