Size and Treewidth Bounds for Conjunctive Queries

This article provides new worst-case bounds for the size and treewith of the result Q ( D ) of a conjunctive query Q applied to a database D . We derive bounds for the result size | Q ( D )| in terms of structural properties of Q , both in the absence and in the presence of keys and functional dependencies. These bounds are based on a novel “coloring” of the query variables that associates a coloring number C ( Q ) to each query Q . Intuitively, each color used represents some possible entropy of that variable. Using this coloring number, we derive tight bounds for the size of Q ( D ) in case (i) no functional dependencies or keys are specified, and (ii) simple functional dependencies (keys) are given. These results generalize recent size-bounds for join queries obtained by Atserias et al. 2008. In the case of arbitrary (compound) functional dependencies, we use tools from information theory to provide lower and upper bounds, establishing a close connection between size bounds and a basic question in information theory. Our new coloring scheme also allows us to precisely characterize (both in the absence of keys and with simple keys) the treewidth-preserving queries---the queries for which the treewidth of the output relation is bounded by a function of the treewidth of the input database. Finally, we give some results on the computational complexity of determining the size bounds, and of deciding whether the treewidth is preserved.