Count Constraints and the Inverse OLAP Problem: Definition, Complexity and a Step toward Aggregate Data Exchange

A typical problem in database theory is to verify whether there exists a relation (or database) instance satisfying a number of given dependency constraints. This problem has recently received a renewed deal of interest within the context of data exchange, but the issue of handling constraints on aggregate data has not been much investigated so far, notwithstanding the relevance of aggregate operations in exchange systems. This paper introduces count constraints that require the results of given count operations on a relation to be within a certain range. Count constraints are defined by a suitable extension of first order predicate calculus, based on set terms, and they are then used in a new decisional problem, the Inverse OLAP: given a star schema, does there exist a relation instance satisfying a set of given count constraints? The new problem turns out to be NEXP complete under various conditions: program complexity, data complexity and combined complexity. Count constraints can be also used into a data exchange system context, where data from the source database are transferred to the target database using aggregate operations.

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