On reasoning about structural equality in XML: A description logic approach

Abstract. We define a boolean complete description logic dialect called DLFDreg that can be used to reason about structural equality in semistructured ordered data in the presence of document type definitions. This application depends on the novel ability of DLFDreg to express functional dependencies over sets of possibly infinite feature paths defined by regular languages. We also present a decision procedure for the associated logical implication problem. The procedure underlies a mapping of such problems to satisfiability problems of Datalog ∨,¬ nS and in turn to the Ackermann case of the decision problem.