A Window-based Algorithm for Skyline Queries

Abstract

Given a set of points, the skyline comprises the points that are not dominated by other points. A point dominates another point if it is as good or better in all dimensions and better in at least one dimension. Skyline queries are important for several database applications, including customer information systems, decision support, and data visualization. In this paper we propose a window-based algorithm for skyline queries, which transforms skyline queries into many different dynamic window queries. Though the first window query we get the first skyline point, then we only need to search the points in the valid region we defined, so it is not necessary to retrieve all the points in the space and prune query space effectively and significantly. The window queries only visit the possible skyline points, and only visit each point once, the number of the accessed data points decreases significantly, the query result is sound and complete.