Interactive search in XML data

Abstract

In a traditional keyword-search system over XML data, a user composes a keyword query, submits it to the system, and retrieves relevant subtrees. In the case where the user has limited knowledge about the data, often the user feels left in the dark when issuing queries, and has to use a try-and-see approach for finding information. In this paper, we study a new information-access paradigm for XML data, called Inks, in which the system searches the underlying data on the fly as the user types in query keywords. Inks extends existing XML keyword search methods by interactively answering queries. We propose effective indices, early-termination techniques, and efficient search algorithms to achieve a high interactive speed. We have implemented our algorithm, and the experimental results show that our method achieves high search efficiency and result quality.