A deductive database is a database system that can make deductions (i.e. conclude additional facts) based on rules and

fact A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scient ...

s stored in the (deductive) database. Datalog is the language typically used to specify facts, rules and queries in deductive databases. Deductive databases have grown out of the desire to combine logic programming with

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

s to construct systems that support a powerful formalism and are still fast and able to deal with very large datasets. Deductive databases are more expressive than relational databases but less expressive than logic programming systems. In recent years, deductive databases such as Datalog have found new application in data integration, information extraction, networking, program analysis, security, and cloud computing.Datalog and Emerging applications
/ref> Deductive databases reuse many concepts from logic programming; rules and facts specified in the deductive database language Datalog look very similar to those in Prolog. However important differences between deductive databases and logic programming: * Order sensitivity and procedurality: In Prolog, program execution depends on the order of rules in the program and on the order of parts of rules; these properties are used by programmers to build efficient programs. In database languages (like SQL or Datalog), however, program execution is independent of the order of rules and facts. * Special predicates: In Prolog, programmers can directly influence the procedural evaluation of the program with special predicates such as the cut, this has no correspondence in deductive databases. * Function symbols: Logic Programming languages allow function symbols to build up complex symbols. This is not allowed in deductive databases. * Tuple-oriented processing: Deductive databases use set-oriented processing while logic programming languages concentrate on one tuple at a time.

References

Further reading