Summary-Table-By-Example: A database query language for manipulating summary data

In this paper we introduce the notion of summary table and a high level nonprocedural language, Summary-Table-By-Example (STBE) to manipulate summary data in databases. STBE is similar to Query-by-Example in that it uses graphical two-dimensional objects such as relations and summary tables in formulating a relational database query. STBE is an extension of the Aggregates-by-example database language. STBE may be used in general-purpose databases and statistical databases to extract and format summary data in a tabular form. It is believed to be user-friendly and sufficiently powerful to be used in application areas such as medical research, health planning, energy production and consumption, scientific experiments, political planning and office automation. STBE is relationally complete, i.e., its expressive power is at least that of the relational calculus extended to allow set-valued attributes and aggregate functions.