A Dichotomy in Consistent Query Answering for Primary Keys and Unary Foreign Keys

TL;DR

This paper explores the complexity of consistent query answering in databases with primary and unary foreign key constraints, identifying which cases allow for efficient first-order query rewriting.

Contribution

It introduces the first analysis of CQA combining primary keys and unary foreign keys, characterizing when first-order rewritings are possible.

Findings

Identifies the boundary for first-order rewritability in combined primary and unary foreign key constraints.

Provides a formal characterization of CQA complexity in this setting.

Highlights the importance of symmetric-difference repairs for foreign key violations.

Abstract

Since 2005, significant progress has been made in the problem of Consistent Query Answering (CQA) with respect to primary keys. In this problem, the input is a database instance that may violate one or more primary key constraints. A repair is defined as a maximal subinstance that satisfies all primary keys. Given a Boolean query q, the question then is whether q holds true in every repair. So far, theoretical research in this field has not addressed the combination of primary key and foreign key constraints, despite the importance of referential integrity in database systems. This paper addresses the problem of CQA with respect to both primary keys and foreign keys. In this setting, it is natural to adopt the notion of symmetric-difference repairs, because foreign keys can be repaired by inserting new tuples. We consider the case where foreign keys are unary, and queries are conjunctive queries without self-joins. In this setting, we characterize the boundary between those CQA problems that admit a consistent first-order rewriting, and those that do not.