Definitions of material views are automatically generated. In general, Automated MV generation identifies a set of candidates MVs by examining a working set of query blocks. Once the candidates are formed, the candidate MVs are further evaluated to calculate a benefit to the candidate MVs. An improved approach for generating a candidate set of MVs is described herein. The improved approach is referred to as the extended covering subexpression technique (ECSE). Under ECSE, various relationships between join sets other than strict equivalence are used to generate new resultant join sets. Such relationships include subset, intersection, superset, and union, which shall be described in further detail below. In some cases, relationships among resultant join sets and initial join sets are considered to generate new resultant join sets. The final resultant join sets are then used to form a candidate set of MVs.