Document Spanners - A Brief Overview of Concepts, Results, and Recent Developments

Abstract

The information extraction framework of document spanners was introduced by Fagin, Kimelfeld, Reiss, and Vansummeren (PODS 2013, J. ACM 2015) as a formalisation of the query language AQL, which is used in IBM's information extraction engine SystemT. Since 2013, this framework has been investigated in depth by the principles of database management community and beyond. The present paper gives a brief overview of concepts, results, and recent developments concerning document spanners. CCS CONCEPTS• Information systems → Information retrieval; • Theory of computation → Database query languages (principles); Data structures and algorithms for data management; Design and analysis of algorithms; Automata extensions; Regular languages.