Detecting XML Functional Dependencies through Formal Concept Analysis

Abstract. As XML becomes a popular data representation and exchange format over the web, XML schema design has become an important research area. Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) has been widely applied in many fields recently. In this paper, we propose the application of FCA to find functional dependencies (FDs) in XML databases. Our work is based on the definitions of the Generalized Tree Tuple, XML functional dependency and XML key notion presented by [26]. We propose a framework which parses the XML document and constructs the Formal Context corresponding to the flat representation of the XML data. The obtained Conceptual Lattice is a useful graphical representation of the analyzed XML document’s elements and their hierarchy. The software also finds the keys and functional dependencies in XML data, which are attribute implications in the constructed Formal Context. Keywords and phrases: XML design, Formal Concept Analysis, XML Functional Dependency.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ADBIS
• Authors: Katalin Tunde Janosi-Rancz, Viorica Varga, Timea Nagy
• Keywords: ADBIS 2010, Database, Formal Concept Analysis, Xml Functional Dependency, XML Schema Design