The expressive power of temporal relational query languages

Abstract

We consider the representation of temporal data based on tuple and attribute timestamping. We identify the requirements in modeling temporal data and elaborate on their implications in the expressive power of temporal query languages. We introduce a temporal relational data model where N1NF relations and attribute timestamping are used and one level of nesting is allowed. For this model, a nested relational tuple calculus (NTC) is defined. We follow a comparative approach in evaluating the expressive power of temporal query languages, using NTC as a metric and comparing it with the existing temporal query languages. We prove that NTC subsumes the expressive power of these query languages. We also demonstrate how various temporal relational models can be obtained from our temporal relations by NTC and give equivalent NTC expressions for their languages. Furthermore, we show the equivalence of intervals and temporal elements (sets) as timestamps in our model. © 1997 IEEE.