QURSED


Querying and Reporting Semistructured Data

Description

The QURSED system generates and serves web-based query forms and reports for sources that store XML data and support the emerging XQuery language. The Enosys Application Builder was a precursor of QURSED and part of a commercial integration platform.

End users interact with a query form page by typing or selecting constants in HTML form controls, such as text boxes and drop-down lists, and QURSED automatically formulates XQuery statements, which produce report pages. The form and report pages accommodate the intricacies of semi-structured (typically XML) data, i.e., data whose structure is characterized by high variability, nesting, repeatability and optional fields.

QURSED also provides an intuitive graphical interface to developers that semi-automates the production of such query forms and reports during design-time. In particular, a developer is presented with a visual representation of the XML Schema describing the underlying XML data, and by performing visual actions she associates schema elements with form controls on the query form page. Other than page layout and style customization, no programming or knowledge of XQuery is required. The end result is compiled and deployed to a QURSED-enabled application server.

QURSED decouples the query aspects of the generated pages from the visual ones, hence making it easier to develop and maintain the resulting forms and reports. Moreover, advanced capabilities are also offered, which provide fine-grained control on what queries make sense given the XML Schema and the semantics of the data.

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Publications
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Graphical Query Interfaces for Semistructured Data: The QURSED System
Michalis Petropoulos, Yannis Papakonstantinou, Vasilis Vassalos
ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), to appear, 2005
N/A Generating Query Forms and Reports for Semistructured Data: The QURSED Editor
Yannis Papakonstantinou, Michalis Petropoulos, Vasilis Vassalos
Ninth Panhellenic Conference on Informatics (PCI), 2003
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QURSED: Querying and Reporting SEmistructured Data
Yannis Papakonstantinou, Michalis Petropoulos, Vasilis Vassalos
ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2002
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Building XML Query Forms and Reports with XQForms
Michalis Petropoulos, Yannis Papakonstantinou, Vasilis Vassalos
Computer Networks Journal, Special Issue on XML, vol 39/5, pp 541-558, 2002
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XML Query Forms (XQForms): Declarative Specification of XML Query Interfaces
Michalis Petropoulos, Vasilis Vassalos, Yannis Papakonstantinou
Tenth International World Wide Web Conference (WWW10), 2001

Presentations
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(PDF)
QURSED: QUerying and Reporting SEmistructured Data
ACM SIGMOD Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, 2002
University of Pennsylvania, Database Group, 2002