Expressiveness and static analysis of extended conjunctive regular path queries

We study the expressiveness and the complexity of static analysis of extended conjunctive regular path queries (ECRPQs), introduced by Barceló et al. (2010) [3]. ECRPQs are an extension of conjunctive regular path queries (CRPQs), a well-studied language for querying graph structured databases. Our first main result shows that query containment and equivalence of a CRPQ in an ECRPQ are undecidable. This settles one of the main open problems posed by Barceló et al. As a second main result, we prove a non-recursive succinctness gap between CRPQs and the CRPQ-expressible fragment of ECRPQs. Apart from this, we develop a tool for proving inexpressibility results for CRPQs and ECRPQs. In particular, this enables us to show that there exist queries definable by regular expressions with backreferencing, but not expressible by ECRPQs.

► Expressive and static analysis of extended CRPQs (ECRPQs) is studied.
► Containment and equivalence are undecidable for very restricted cases.
► There is a succinctness gap between CRPQs and CRPQs expressible as ECRPQs.
► A tool for proving inexpressibility results for ECRPQs is developed.