A language and a physical organization technique for summary tables

Abstract

A summary table IS a tabular representation of summary data, and is a useful data structure for statistical databases Priventive summary tables are basic building blocks of summmy tables, and can be represented as relations with set-valued attributes In this paper, we propose a set of summary table manipulation operators that, together with an algebra of set-valued relations, form an algebraic language for mampulatmg set-valued relations and arbitrary summary tables We then describe a physlcal orgamzatlon technique for summary tables, and discuss an lmplementatlon for summary table operators utlltzmg this techmque.