Form-Based Instant Search and Query Autocompletion on Relational Data

Abstract

Finding information in relational data is a key task of data management in the age of information explosion. However, state-of-the-art search paradigms in relational data, such as Structured Query Language (SQL), keyword search, and query-by-example (QBE) have their own limitations. In this paper we address the issue of enhancing the power of QBE-like search interface, i.e. form-style interface, by incorporating instant search and query autocompletion, which are useful features for traditional keyword search but have not been paid enough attention specifically for form-style interfaces by database researchers. We devise effective index and efficient algorithms that can support instant search and query autocompletion using distinct attribute string values simultaneously. In addition, we also consider the issue of query autocompletion for those attributes in which each distinct attribute string value has few occurrences in the table, and devise the algorithm that provides complete words as completion results instead. We conducted extensive experiments on real-world datasets, and results show that our methods outperform baseline methods in terms of both efficiency and scalability.