Expressive Power of Property Graph Constraint Languages

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Dumbrava, Stefania, Francis, Nadime, Marsault, Victor, Sailly, Steven
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Dumbrava, Stefania
Francis, Nadime
Marsault, Victor
Sailly, Steven
author_facet Dumbrava, Stefania
Francis, Nadime
Marsault, Victor
Sailly, Steven
contents We present the first principled and systematic study of the expressive power of property graph constraint languages, focused on the recent PG-Keys language, set to inform the upcoming revision of the GQL standard. To this end, we position PG-Keys within the broader landscape of existing formalisms. In particular, we compare PG-Keys with two core property graph constraint languages: Graph Functional Dependencies (GFD) and Graph Generating Dependencies (GGD). One hurdle is that these formalisms allow different kinds of graph pattern languages and data predicates. To make a fair comparison, based on their structural differences only, we first present a unifying framework. Within this framework, we consider conjunctive regular path queries (CRPQ) as graph patterns with equality and inequality predicates. We then identify well-behaved fragments, establish expressiveness inclusion, and prove separation results, yielding a complete and strict hierarchy of expressive power. The results identify precisely when PG-Keys provide strictly greater expressive power, clarifying their place among state-of-the-art property graph constraint formalisms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_09806
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Expressive Power of Property Graph Constraint Languages
Dumbrava, Stefania
Francis, Nadime
Marsault, Victor
Sailly, Steven
Databases
We present the first principled and systematic study of the expressive power of property graph constraint languages, focused on the recent PG-Keys language, set to inform the upcoming revision of the GQL standard. To this end, we position PG-Keys within the broader landscape of existing formalisms. In particular, we compare PG-Keys with two core property graph constraint languages: Graph Functional Dependencies (GFD) and Graph Generating Dependencies (GGD). One hurdle is that these formalisms allow different kinds of graph pattern languages and data predicates. To make a fair comparison, based on their structural differences only, we first present a unifying framework. Within this framework, we consider conjunctive regular path queries (CRPQ) as graph patterns with equality and inequality predicates. We then identify well-behaved fragments, establish expressiveness inclusion, and prove separation results, yielding a complete and strict hierarchy of expressive power. The results identify precisely when PG-Keys provide strictly greater expressive power, clarifying their place among state-of-the-art property graph constraint formalisms.
title Expressive Power of Property Graph Constraint Languages
topic Databases
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09806