Semantic characterizations of navigational XPath
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: We give semantic characterizations of the expressive power of navigational XPath (a.k.a. Core XPath) in terms of first order logic. XPath can be used to specify sets of nodes and sets of paths in an XML document tree. We consider both uses. For sets of nodes, XPath is equally expressive as first order logic in two variables. For paths, XPath can be defined using four simple connectives, which together yield the class of first order definable relations which are safe for bisimulation. Furthermore, we give a characterization of the XPath expressible paths in terms of conjunctive queries.
Source: ACM SIGMOD Record
Authors: Maarten Marx, Maarten de Rijke
Institution: University of Amsterdam
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1484900789