Re: summary on options for JP-4 Comment about the semantics of property paths

I prefer option 1, and let's learn from whether implementers end up 
implementing something like option 2 for future standardization.

Lee

On 2/9/2012 4:10 PM, Axel Polleres wrote:
> (in completion of ACTION-587)
>
> Dear all, as discussed in the last Telco, we have several options on how to proceed with addressing  comment JP-4 [1].
> If possible, I would like to get consensus on how to proceed here in the next Telco.
>
> In the previous Telco [2], we seemed to have consensus that we do not aim to switch the default behaviour from counting semantics to
> distinct paths.
>
> Now two possibilities to proceed were discussed:
>
> Option 1... keep everything as it is in the grammar, and explain which DISTINCT path subqueries can be optimized:
> As outlined in my email below, it might not be entirely trivial to argue in response to the comment that this
> would be equivalent to the JP-4 proposed semantics, I am not 100% sure whether/how to define a rewriting to
> wrap all path expressions into DISTINCT subqueries, such that it would be equivalent to their semantics
> (e.g. regarding bnode [] shortcuts).
>
> Option 2 ... add DISTINCT around paths: It seems that sticking to our intended semantics and allowing - orthogonally to their
> ALLPATHS keyword proposal the keyword DISTINCT( ) around path expressions switching to existential paths semantics would be
> equivalent to the JP-4 existential paths semantics as outlined in Section 7.1 of their paper, and thus optimizable.
>
> Unlike someone sees a 3rd alternative, I would like to propose to decide between those two options next time
> and proceed, discussion prior to the call on email would be appreciated.
>
> Option 2 might be easier to implement, but also requires us to go for another LC round, as it would change the grammar.
> I think, in case we skip PR and manage to republish very soon, we would still manage to stay within time limits, but I would
> also like to know the team contacts' opinion on that.
>
> best,
> Axel
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> 1. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg-comments/2012Jan/0009.html
> 2. http://www.w3.org/2009/sparql/meeting/2012-02-07#comments
>
> On 2 Feb 2012, at 22:01, Axel Polleres wrote:
>
>> To get the discussion going, my personal opinion on that one is as follows:
>>
>>   a) I also think this is new and relevant information.
>>   b) I think it would be important to point to the fact that a naive implementation
>>      of property paths may become very inefficient/blowing up on even relatively harmelsssly looking examples, and that Property PATHs
>>      wrapped into DISTINCT subqueries can be evaluated more efficiently ... I'd be even more than happy
>>      to point in an informal reference to their work, however I feel honestly very uncomfortable with their
>>      title.
>>   c) As for their conclusion, proposing a default semantics that uses distinct paths semantics,
>>      whereas a separate keyword ALL-PATHS would be indicating the current semantics:
>>      it seems that (looking at their results in Section 7.1) that this is orthogonally possible with our current semantics
>>      by just wrapping any TriplesSameSubjectPath containing a property path into a DISTINCT subquery.
>>      It seems their result in section 7.1 indicates something along these lines, but I need some help there:
>>      admittedly don't have a formal proof for this equivalence yet (to be cautious, I am not yet 100% clear how/whether there is
>>      any interference possible with bnodes within TriplesSameSubjectPath and duplicates coming from those bnodes)
>>
>> This all said, I unfortunately haven't had the time yet to check all their claims in all detail.
>>
>> Axel
>>
>>
>> On 29 Jan 2012, at 20:58, Lee Feigenbaum wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> I do see new information in this latest comment, so I'd like to discuss
>>> it, as it is high priority to know whether it might affect our schedule.
>>>
>>> Lee
>>>
>>>> End of last call for query is Feb 6th - I don't expect we will be
>>>> replying until after that point anyway, but, if there's time, we can
>>>> make a start discussing it.
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> On 29/01/12 19:03, Lee Feigenbaum wrote:
>>>>> I'd suggest we discuss on our call this week.
>>>>>
>>>>> Lee
>>>>>
>>>>> On 1/28/2012 12:38 PM, Andy Seaborne wrote:
>>>>>> A previous conversation of these issues includes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg-comments/2011Feb/0005.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> where the WG points out:
>>>>>> 1/ That aggregation may yield confusing results to a natural query
>>>>>> 2/ That an optimizer may be given further information via a sub-query
>>>>>> and DISTINCT.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The purchase order example seems to me to be a reasonable expectation of
>>>>>> any spreadsheet user. The same price is arrived at several times (two
>>>>>> ways: via two :item1's and two uses of the same literal 2).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are two sets of use cases: one set where duplicates are essential,
>>>>>> and one set where they are redundant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jorge's reply then:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-dawg-comments/2011Feb/0012.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> acknowledged the points in the response.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>>>> Subject: Comments about the semantics of property paths
>>>>>> Resent-Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:52:22 +0000
>>>>>> Resent-From: public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org
>>>>>> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:51:45 -0300
>>>>>> From: jorge perez<jorge.perez.rojas@gmail.com>
>>>>>> To: public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org
>>>>>> CC: Marcelo Arenas<marcelo.arenas1@gmail.com>, Sebastián Conca
>>>>>> <sconca87@gmail.com>, jorge perez<jorge.perez.rojas@gmail.com>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear DAWG members,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We have some comments regarding the semantics of property paths. We
>>>>>> know that this issue has been raised before, but we think that we can
>>>>>> provide substantial new information to reconsider it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We have conducted a thorough study of the current semantics of
>>>>>> property paths including an empirical analysis. All our results are in
>>>>>> a paper that has been accepted in WWW 2012. You can find a
>>>>>> copy of the extended version of this paper at
>>>>>> http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/sub-www-ext.pdf. Given the tight
>>>>>> schedule of the group, we think that it might be useful to make these
>>>>>> results public for the group before we have a final published version.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As a summary we can provide two main comments, one from a practical
>>>>>> perspective and another from a theoretical perspective.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Comment 1: Poor performance of current engines.
>>>>>> =================================================
>>>>>> We tested 4 implementations of property paths: Jena, RDF::Query,
>>>>>> Sesame, and KGram-Corese (details on the experimental setting can be
>>>>>> found at http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/). A first
>>>>>> set of experiments was with synthetic data and other with real data.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In both cases the implementations were not capable to handle even
>>>>>> small data for the most simple property path queries.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Case A)
>>>>>> We tested RDF data representing complete graphs. No implementation was
>>>>>> able to handle a graph with 13 nodes for a query with a single
>>>>>> property path of the form (:P)*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> data1: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/clique13.n3
>>>>>> query1: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/Cliq-1.rq
>>>>>>
>>>>>> See Figure 1 in the paper for the performance of all implementations
>>>>>> below 13 nodes. The figure suggests that the evaluation time for these
>>>>>> implementations growths doubly-exponentially w.r.t. the size of the
>>>>>> input.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Case B)
>>>>>> We tested real RDF data crawled from a small set of foaf documents. We
>>>>>> started from Axel's foaf document and retrieve friends, friends of
>>>>>> friends, etc. following foaf:knows links, and constructed several test
>>>>>> cases. In this case, no implementation was able to handle an RDF graph
>>>>>> of 14KB for a query with a single property path (foaf:knows)*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> data2: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/E.n3
>>>>>> query2: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/Foaf-1.rq
>>>>>>
>>>>>> See Table 1 in the paper for the performance of all implementations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Comment 2: High Computational Complexity.
>>>>>> ===========================================
>>>>>> We prove in the paper that for the current semantics of property paths
>>>>>> in SPARQL the complexity of evaluation is double-exponential (Lemma
>>>>>> 5.4 and Theorem 5.5). Given that property paths require counting
>>>>>> paths, we measure the complexity by making use of counting complexity
>>>>>> classes. The technical result is that SPARQL 1.1 evaluation is not
>>>>>> even inside #P (Theorem 5.5), where #P is the counting complexity
>>>>>> class associated to NP (a prototypical #P-complete problem is the
>>>>>> problem
>>>>>> of computing the number of truth assignments that satisfies a
>>>>>> propositional
>>>>>> formula, which is more complicated than the prototypical NP-complete
>>>>>> problem
>>>>>> which is to verify whether there exists at least one truth assignment
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> satisfies a propositional formula). Thus, in informal terms, we prove
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> SPARQL 1.1 evaluation considering counting is even more complex than
>>>>>> solving an NP-complete problem.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We also prove that if only the input data is considered to measure the
>>>>>> complexity of the problem, then the evaluation problem is #P-hard.
>>>>>> Notice that without property paths, the evaluation problem for SPARQL
>>>>>> can be solved in polynomial time (if the complexity is measured only in
>>>>>> terms of the size of the data).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Discussion
>>>>>> ==========
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of the main conclusions that one can draw from our results is that
>>>>>> the poor performance exhibited in Cases A) and B) above is not a
>>>>>> problem of the particular implementations but a problem of the
>>>>>> specification itself, as our theoretical results imply that every
>>>>>> implementation that follows the current specification of SPARQL 1.1
>>>>>> would have the same poor behavior.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Our results also show that the main source of complexity is the
>>>>>> requirement of counting paths, and in particular the procedure ALP
>>>>>> which is the one that gives the semantics for counting. Essentially,
>>>>>> the counting mechanism produces a number of duplicates that in some
>>>>>> cases are beyond any naturally feasible number. Table 7 in the paper
>>>>>> shows a worst case analysis. For instance, for the case
>>>>>>
>>>>>> data3: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/clique7.n3
>>>>>> query3: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/Cliq-2.rq
>>>>>>
>>>>>> we formally prove that any implementation that follows the current
>>>>>> specification should produce an output of 79 Yottabytes (79 trillion
>>>>>> Terabytes), and thus would not fit in any reasonable storage device.
>>>>>> Please notice that unfeasible counting can also be obtained with real
>>>>>> data. For example, for the case
>>>>>>
>>>>>> data4: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/D.n3
>>>>>> query2: http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~jperez/www_repeatability/Foaf-1.rq
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ARQ (which was the only implementation that was able to handle this
>>>>>> case in less than one hour) produced an output of 587MB. Notice that
>>>>>> data3 is of only 13.2KB. Table 6 in the paper shows the running time
>>>>>> and the output size. Please notice that this experiment is with real
>>>>>> data and it is highly probable that property paths will be used in
>>>>>> practice with this type of queries.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It is worth mentioning that our group is not the only one that have
>>>>>> formally studied property-path semantics according to the current
>>>>>> specification, and that have shown negative results about the complexity
>>>>>> of evaluating it. We are aware that Katja Losemann and Wim Martens
>>>>>> obtained similar results independently from us. Wim Martens gave a
>>>>>> talk about this called "The complexity of evaluating path expressions
>>>>>> in SPARQL" in a Dagstuhl seminar. In that work, the authors also
>>>>>> studied property-path expressions of the form :P{m,n}, and show that
>>>>>> the complexity of evaluating them is very high.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We think that we have provided substantial new information to
>>>>>> reconsider the issue of property path semantics. We have several other
>>>>>> comments, but we think that the two comments above are the most
>>>>>> important to consider, and we are open to continue the discussion with
>>>>>> the group and, if necessary, cooperate with the group to make a proposal
>>>>>> for property path evaluation that can have an efficient evaluation
>>>>>> method.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Marcelo Arenas
>>>>>> Sebastián Conca
>>>>>> Jorge Pérez
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>
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Received on Friday, 10 February 2012 17:51:11 UTC