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Query Evaluation (cont)

A query in SQL:
  • states what answers are required (declarative)
  • does not say how they should be computed (procedural)
A query evaluator/processor :
  • takes declarative description of query   (in SQL)
  • parses query to internal representation   (relational algebra)
  • determines plan for answering query   (expressed as DBMS ops)
  • executes method via DBMS engine   (to produce result tuples)

Some DBMSs can save query plans for later re-use.