Computer language used to make queries into databases and information systems
A query language, also known as data query language or database query language (DQL), is a computer language used to make queries in databases and information systems. A well known example is the Structured Query Language (SQL).
Types
Broadly, query languages can be classified according to whether they are database query languages or information retrieval query languages. The difference is that a database query language attempts to give factual answers to factual questions, while an information retrieval query language attempts to find documents containing information that is relevant to an area of inquiry. Other types of query languages include:
- Full-text. The simplest query language is treating all terms as bag of words that are to be matched with the postings in the inverted index and where subsequently ranking models are applied to retrieve the most relevant documents. Only tokens are defined in the CFG. Web search engines often use this approach.
- Boolean. A query language that also supports the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT.
- Structured. A language that supports searching within (a combination of) fields when a document is structured and has been indexed using its document structure.
- Natural language. A query language that supports natural language by parsing the natural language query to a form that can be best used to retrieve relevant documents, for example with Question answering systems or conversational search.
