One of the key problems when extending relational database query languages to include deductive capabilities, is to provide them with efficient methods for answering recursive queries. During the last few years many algorithms have been proposed to deal with transitive closure computation of a relation. In this paper, we discuss some important criteria for developing transitive closure algorithms. After presenting these issues, we describe an algorithm for transitive closure computation and show some results of performance measurements comparing several algorithms.
W. Yan, Nelson Mendonça Mattos