Bridging the Gap: Enabling Natural Language Queries for NoSQL Databases through Text-to-NoSQL Translation
This addresses the need for user-friendly interfaces for non-expert users interacting with NoSQL databases, though it is incremental as it builds on existing text-to-SQL methods.
The paper tackles the problem of enabling non-technical users to query NoSQL databases by introducing the Text-to-NoSQL task, which converts natural language queries into NoSQL queries, and establishes a benchmark with a new dataset and framework.
NoSQL databases have become increasingly popular due to their outstanding performance in handling large-scale, unstructured, and semi-structured data, highlighting the need for user-friendly interfaces to bridge the gap between non-technical users and complex database queries. In this paper, we introduce the Text-to-NoSQL task, which aims to convert natural language queries into NoSQL queries, thereby lowering the technical barrier for non-expert users. To promote research in this area, we developed a novel automated dataset construction process and released a large-scale and open-source dataset for this task, named TEND (short for Text-to-NoSQL Dataset). Additionally, we designed a SLM (Small Language Model)-assisted and RAG (Retrieval-augmented Generation)-assisted multi-step framework called SMART, which is specifically designed for Text-to-NoSQL conversion. To ensure comprehensive evaluation of the models, we also introduced a detailed set of metrics that assess the model's performance from both the query itself and its execution results. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and establish a benchmark for future research in this emerging field. We believe that our contributions will pave the way for more accessible and intuitive interactions with NoSQL databases.