Streamable fragments of forward XPath

Abstract

We present a query answering algorithm for a fragment of Forward XPath on Xml streams that we obtain by compilation to deterministic nested word automata. Our algorithm is earliest and in polynomial time. This proves the finite streamability of the fragment of Forward XPath with child steps, outermost-descendant steps, label tests, negation, and conjunction (aka filters), under the reasonable assumption that the number of conjunctions is bounded. We also prove that finite streamability fails without this assumption except if P=NP. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.