Abstract: Systems and methods that retrieve at least one data element from a database include a database and a plurality of predefined query procedures, each predefined query procedure referencing an inquiry path, entering a query having a query procedure and at least one parameter, locating the query procedure and the referenced inquiry path, and using the referenced inquiry path with the parameter to retrieve at least one data element from the database, that is the result of the query. Generally, the system will be used to retrieve data for entity-relation databases (ERDBs) using Structured Query Language (SQL) queries, but that is not required.