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Database Access

Database access requires two kinds of information:

  1. Which records are to be selected. This takes the form of a set of restrictions that selected records must satisfy.
    
    (restrict 'field value)
    

  2. What information is to be retrieved from the selected records.
    
    (retrieve 'field)
    
The task of the NL access program is to translate the user's question from English into a formal call to an existing database program.

The components of the query are collected as lists in the global variables restrictions and retrievals.