SQLizer: query synthesis from natural language

Abstract

This paper presents a new technique for automatically synthesizing SQL queries from natural language (NL). At the core of our technique is a new NL-based program synthesis methodology that combines semantic parsing techniques from the NLP community with type-directed program synthesis and automated program repair. Starting with a program sketch obtained using standard parsing techniques, our approach involves an iterative refinement loop that alternates between quantitative type inhabitation and automated sketch repair. We use the proposed idea to build an end-to-end system called Sqlizer that can synthesize SQL queries from natural language. Our method is fully automated, works for any database without requiring additional customization, and does not require users to know the underlying database schema. We evaluate our approach on over 450 natural language queries concerning three different databases, namely MAS, IMDB, and YELP. Our experiments show that the desired query is ranked within the top 5 candidates in close to 90% of the cases and that Sqlizer outperforms Nalir, a state-of-the-art tool that won a best paper award at VLDB'14. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Natural language interfaces; • Software and its engineering → Domain specific languages; • Information systems → Relational database query languages; Database utilities and tools; Extraction, transformation and loading;

CoSQL: A Conversational Text-to-SQL Challenge Towards Cross-Domain Natural Language Interfaces to Databases

“…Dialogue acts are on the right-hand side (e.g., Q 3 is "ambiguous" and R 3 is "clarify"). query to be well-formed and stated in a single sentence (Zelle and Mooney, 1996;Li and Jagadish, 2014;Yaghmazadeh et al, 2017;Iyer et al, 2017;Zhong et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2017;Shi et al, 2018;Yu et al, 2018b,c). In reality, complex questions are usually answered through interactive exchanges (Figure 1).…”

Polystore++: Accelerated Polystore System for Heterogeneous Workloads

“…e. How should a natural language query be compiled to a semantic equivalent heterogeneous program: Yaghmazadeh et al [49] and Jagdish et al [50] have approached the problem of translating a natural-language query to a SQL query. Virtual assistants such as Almond [51] convert natural language commands into programs.…”

Resource-guided program synthesis

“…In recent years, program synthesis has emerged as a promising technique for automating low-level aspects of programming [24,60,65]. Synthesis technology enables users to create programs by describing desired behavior with input-output examples [18-20, 22, 46, 59, 69, 70], natural language [71], and partial or complete formal specifications [35,39,50,51,62]. If the input is a formal specification, synthesis algorithms can not only create a program but also a proof that the program meets the given specification [39,50,51,62].…”