Database queries are often business-critical. But there are few methods for ensuring their correctness. Businesses need new methods and tools that increase confidence in the correctness of both standard and ad-hoc queries.

Process is key to querying with confidence: businesses must use methods that foster query correctness. But, within these methods, technologies can assist the people who write and test queries. We are developing a query correctness platform, whose tools will assist programmers in testing and debugging complex SQL queries. The platform comprises a Query-Aware Database Generator and a Query Audit Tool. Query-Aware Database Generator The Database Generator populates a database with test data. The tool chooses the data by analyzing the programmer's query. It keeps the amount of data small, for ease of comprehension. But it chooses data that`exercises‘ different conditions within the query and query variants to reveal likely errors. Query Audit Tool With the Query Audit Tool, programmers can visualize result provenance: it shows which records in base tables contribute to each record in a query’s result table. With this tool, programmers and auditors can determine why a record appears in a query's result table.

This work is not restricted to particular market sectors. Any organization in which complex SQL is written will benefit from tools to improve query correctness.