Unit conversion in database systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10108662-B2
Application number	US-201514950887-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 24, 2015
Priority date	Nov 24, 2015
Publication date	Oct 23, 2018
Grant date	Oct 23, 2018

Abstract

According to various embodiments, systems and methods for performing unit conversion operations in a database system are provided. According to embodiments, a database operation will require unit conversion. A number of unit conversions that might be required both before and after performance of the operation can then be estimated. At least some of the data entries implicated by the operation can then be converted from a first unit to a second unit depending on the result of the estimation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of performing unit conversion operations in a database, comprising:
determining that a database operation requires conversion of a first plurality of data rows expressed in a first unit to a second plurality of data rows expressed in a second unit;
determining pre-operation database operations to be performed before a first performance of the database operation;
determining post-operation database operations to be performed after a second performance of the database operation;
determining an order for performing the database operation amongst a plurality of other database operations based at least in part on comparing a first amount of the pre-operation database operations to a second amount of the post-operations database operations; and
converting a first individual data row of the first plurality of data rows expressed in the first unit to a second individual data row of the second plurality of data rows expressed in the second unit based on the order.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the database operation comprises at least one of an aggregation operation and a selection operation.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein converting the first individual data row expressed in the first unit to a second individual data row expressed in the second unit based on the order, comprises:
converting the first individual data row to the second individual data row after performance of the database operation.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the database operation comprises a join operation.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein converting the first individual data row expressed in the first unit to the second individual data row expressed in the second unit based on the order, comprises:
converting the first individual data row to the second individual data row before performance of the database operation.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a conversion rate from the first unit to the second unit.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the determining the conversion rate comprises a recursive self-join lookup until the conversion rate from the first unit until the second unit is found.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
converting a third plurality of data rows expressed in a third unit to a fourth plurality of data rows expressed in a fourth unit.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the database operation is a structured query language operation.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the conversion comprises converting a first currency to a second currency.

11. A computer system, comprising:
a memory configured to store computer instructions; and
one or more processors configured to execute the computer instructions and to:
determine that a database operation requires conversion of a first plurality of data rows expressed in a first unit to a second plurality of data rows expressed in a second unit;
determine pre-operation database operations to be performed before a first performance of the database operation;
determine post-operation database operations to be performed after a second performance of the database operation,
determine an order for performing the database operation amongst a plurality of other database operations based at least in part on comparing the pre-operation database operations to the post-operations database operations; and
convert a first individual data row of the first plurality of data rows expressed in the first unit to a second individual data row of the second plurality of data rows expressed in the second unit based on the order.

12. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein the database operation comprises at least one of an aggregation operation and a selection operation.

13. The computer system of claim 12 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to convert the first individual data row to the second individual data row after performance of the database operation.

14. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein the database operation comprises a join operation.

15. The computer system of claim 14 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to convert the first individual data row to the second individual data row before performance of the database operation.

16. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
determine a conversion rate from the first unit to the second unit.

17. The computer system of claim 16 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to determine the conversion rate using a recursive self-join lookup until the conversion rate from the first unit until the second unit is found.

18. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
convert a third plurality of data rows expressed in a third unit to a fourth plurality of data rows expressed in a fourth unit.

19. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein the conversion comprises converting a first currency to a second currency.

20. A tangible computer-readable device having non-transitory instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:
determining that a database operation requires conversion of a first plurality of data rows expressed in a first unit to a second plurality of data rows expressed in a second unit;
determining pre-operation database operations to be performed before a first performance of the database operation;
determining post-operation database operations to be performed after a second performance of the database operation;
determining an order for performing the database operation amongst a plurality of other database operations based at least in part on comparing a first amount of the pre-operation database operations to a second amount of the post-operations database operations; and
converting a first individual data row of the first plurality of data rows expressed in the first unit to a second individual data row of the second plurality of data rows expressed in the second unit based on the order.

Assignees

• Sap Se

Inventors

• Lee Boyung
• Yoon Joo Young

Classifications

• G06F16/2453 Primary

  Query optimisation · CPC title

• G06F17/30442 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic