Scala Integrated Query – more expressive database queries
Christopher Vogt
 
Scala Integrated Query is a prototype developed at LAMP, EPFL. It compiles a subset of Scala into SQL and executes it in the DBMS. Queries can result in single values or arbitrarily nested lists and tuples, which can require more than one SQL query. Compared to using SQL directly, using Scala Integrated Query can lead to more accurate code and makes it easier to achieve good performance for complex queries. It features greater expressiveness, type safety, familiar syntax and easy composability. Complex queries are efficiently mapped to SQL and automatically optimized. Avalanches of SQL queries are prevented, in particular when correlating data in main-memory with data in the database. This prototype was developed in a Master's project and builds up on research of University of Tübingen, namely Ferry and Pathfinder. Work will continue at Typesafe to turn the prototype into a production-ready library.