Specifying and solving Boolean constraint problems in relational databases: a case study

A two-part approach for extending relational database systems to solve boolean constraint problems is presented. The first is a SQL-extension frontend for specifying boolean constraint problems, and the second is a coupling of constraint solvers with the database engine in the backend. The language extension is high-level and domain-specific, thereby allowing users to focus on writing specifications at the abstraction level of the problem domain. Both a stand-alone solver and a stored-procedure solver are integrated in the backend, and a simple approach for finding "acceptable answers" to overly-constrained problems is discussed. A prototype system is described along with an application to scheduling tennis matches.

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