HANDLING EARLY EXIT IN A PIPELINED QUERY EXECUTION ENGINE VIA BACKWARD PROPAGATION OF EARLY EXIT INFORMATION

In some implementations, there is provided receiving a query request including a top k query operator for query plan generation, optimization, and execution; generating a query plan that includes at least one pipeline of a plurality of operators, wherein the at least one pipeline is associated with a directed acyclic graph; detecting in the query plan a first operator in the at least one pipeline that causes an early exit; and in response to the early exit by the first operator during query execution, processing back through the directed acyclic graph to identify at least one preceding operator that should or should not run given the early exit of the first operator.